Ephemera
Directed by Diana Valentine
Written by Christopher J Waild & Kate Torgovnick May
A retired Navy officer who served in the Vietnam War donates a rare, valuable, and possibly stolen coin to the deputy director of the National Museum of the Navy before he dies by suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. The investigation into the coin's origins leads the team to imagine themselves in his life story in order to piece together how it ended up in his possession.
- Acting for Two: Because everybody in Team Gibbs imagines themselves as the characters in Art's life story, their actors also portray those same characters. Ducky is the only one who doesn't have a role in the flashback story.
- Annie and Art, the Star-Crossed Lovers, are imagined as Torres and Bishop, respectively, who have a huge amount of Ship Tease between them.
- Annie's father is imagined as Gibbs, the Team Dad. Tragically, both Gibbs and Annie’s father outlived their daughters. It also has a twist of irony, as Annie's father is convinced that marrying a Navy man will bring his daughter misery, while Gibbs is a Marine.
- Aunt Bertha, Annie's mother-figure, is imagined as Jack, the Team Mom.
- Vance portrays a soldier Art helped saved in Vietnam.
- In a twist of irony, Kasie and Jimmy, whose jobs at NCIS don't require enforcing the law, are imagined as the two police officers who respond to a domestic disturbance call when Art and Annie got into a major argument about her stealing the Seated Liberty dollar for their attempted elopement.
- In another twist of irony, Annie's brother Spencer is portrayed by McGee. While McGee would do anything to protect his own sister and loves Bishop as a sister-figure, Spencer killed Annie with a poison that made everybody think she was dying from typhoid fever (like her mother did) just so he would be the one to inherit the family business.
- Animal Lover: Before Art’s suicide, he made sure that his dog had a full bowl of kibble, does his suicide in a way that wouldn’t accidentally kill his dog, and sends a note to Deputy Director Stanhope (who runs the military museum he volunteered at) asking her to take care of his dog. Stanhope, for her part, is happy to take care of the dog once she finds out what happened.
- Call-Back: The first bullpen scene confirms that Ziva was able to reunite with Tony and Tali in Paris.
- Cool Old Lady: Aunt Bertha in the present day is wheelchair-bound and living in a nursing home, but she still enjoys a gin martini with two olives. She also reveals the truth behind what really happened to the 1870 dollar, and when she does get the coin back due to being the executor of the Downing estate, she decides to donate it to the National Museum of the Navy so they can auction it off to raise enough money to keep the Vietnam exhibit open, which is the whole reason why Art sent it to the deputy director (along with a note asking her to take care of his dog) before his suicide in the first place.
- Driven to Suicide: Art killed himself with carbon monoxide poisoning because he had an inoperable and terminal brain tumor and he didn't want to spend whatever remaining time he had of his life wasting away from it. Palmer, who saw his grandmother suffer from the exact same kind of brain tumor before dying from it, sympathizes with this.
- I Thought It Meant: This exchange:McGee: There's a problem with a silver dollar?
Deputy Director Stanhope: I take it none of you are numismatists?
Torres: I was raised Catholic.
Deputy Director Stanhope: A numismatist studies currency. - Last Request: Art sends a note to Deputy Director Stanhope asking her to adopt his dog since he wouldn't be around to take care of her anymore and to auction off the silver dollar he had.
- Pet the Dog: Annie's father eventually gives her and Art his blessing to get married when returns from Vietnam. He even repaired the engagement ring Art gave her when it got damaged when he tossed into the fire. Unfortunately, this happened the day before she died.
- The Reveal: Aunt Bertha, who is still alive in the present day, ends up revealing the truth about how the 1870S Seated Liberty Dollar. Annie initially stole it in order for her and Art to pawn it off and get enough money to elope because her father didn't approve of their relationship due to his dirt-poor status. However, Art didn't want to break her father's trust like that and insisted that they got married after he gets back from Vietnam, so the Secret-Keeper Aunt Bertha decided to hold onto it. Then when Annie died from "thyroid failure", Aunt Bertha gave it to Art while he was visiting her resting place in the crypt so he could have it as a token of their love.
- Ship Tease: Ellie and Toress imagine themselves as Annie and Art, during the flashbacks, respectively.
- Stealing from the Till: Spencer didn’t just kill his own sister, he’s also been embezzling his family’s company, which is the real reason why it has been struggling instead of it being in debt.
- Suicide Note: Art writes two; one for the law enforcement who find him to let them know that his death was a suicide, and the second for Stanhope asking her to auction off the silver dollar and to take care of his dog.
- Title Drop: Ephemera are paper items, such as posters, that were originally meant to be discarded after they were used but become collectibles. The letters that Art has saved are the full center of the episode and are valuable to solving the case of the missing the coin.
