Directed by Rocky Carroll
Written by Scott Williams & Kate Torgovnick May
When Kasie and Jimmy are held hostage in the diner Gibbs frequents after a jewelry store robbery across the street goes awry, they attempt to keep the other customers safe from the thieves.
Tropes:
- Ax-Crazy: The lead criminal, Max, is rude and psychotic, and perpetually seems itching to kill someone.
- Benevolent Boss: Despite the jewelry store owner suffering a nasty gash on his forehead and being incredibly shaken up over getting tied up in his office during the robbery on his store, the first thing he does after getting freed from his bindings is to ask the armored car security guards he hired to move some of his valuables to storage if they were okay, since they got into a gunfight with the thieves.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Jimmy. One of the nicest people you can meet, but get on his nerves and you'll be in for a world of pain. One gets the feeling that Gibbs hadn't intervened he would've beaten Max to a pulp.
- Chekhov's Gun: Kasie spends most of the episode wearing contact lenses, and uses eye drops whenever they start acting up. When the robbers start drinking sweet tea to calm their nerves, Kasie secretly dumps the whole bottle of eye drops in the pitcher to give them stomach troubles so they can lose their focus.
- Chekhov's Gunman: One of the criminals mentions that he told his girlfriend what they were doing, and gets killed for it. Said girlfriend shows up later to give McGee, Sloane, and Vance (who are working on the case from NCIS headquarters) crucial information.
- Cruel Mercy: Max initially wants to kill Shayne for shooting one of his fellow criminals, but he decides to let him slowly bleed out from his gunshot wound instead.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Jimmy and Kasie, especially the former.
- Drives Like Crazy: There was originally supposed to be a fourth robber who was the getaway driver but the leader killed him in a fit of anger. This left the lookout to be the getaway driver, but he accidentally backed the car into a fire hydrant out of panic of the armored car guards showing up and getting into a gunfight with the thieves, forcing the robbers to retreat into the diner.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The whole episode (save for The Teaser and the epilogue) takes place over the course of three hours.
- Heroic Sacrifice: A non-lethal version. When Max attempts to use the pregnant woman as a Human Shield when he steps outside for negotiations, Kasie quickly volunteers herself as one instead to protect the pregnant woman from further danger, justifying it by saying Gibbs has a more personal connection to Kasie so he'd be more willing to listen to Max if Kasie was the hostage he used.
- Hostage Situation: The bank robbers take a diner and its patrons hostage, including Jimmy and Kasie.
- Maternity Crisis: Heavily discussed as one of the hostages is a pregnant woman. Kasie does everything she can to make sure she doesn't start giving birth at the wrong time even when the woman insists her baby isn't due for a few weeks.
- Never Be a Hero: Zigzagged. Shayne, the cook, tries to kill the robbers with a gun he had hidden on his ankle in an attempt to save the other hostages, seemingly only getting shot in return for his trouble. However, the one robber he does shoot quickly dies from blood loss, and the condom filled with diamonds and glass in his body help Jimmy and Kasie trick and distract the other two robbers long enough for Gibbs, Bishop, and Torres to make the save.
- Pregnant Hostage: One of the hostages is a woman who’s in the last trimester of her pregnancy. Kasie protects her from any further danger by volunteering to be a Human Shield.
- Running Gag: Every time someone learns that the robbers swallowed condoms filled with diamonds during the robbery, they react with astonishment and comment with some version of "That's commitment!"
- Sequential Symptom Syndrome: Invoked by Jimmy and Kasie, who tell the (two) surviving criminals that they're experiencing the symptoms of blood loss from swallowing glass with the diamond-filled condoms, which has damaged their internal organs. This distracts them long enough for Team Gibbs to subdue them. It helps that Kasie slipped some of her eyedrops into their drinks to simulate the symptoms in question.
- Slipping a Mickey: Kasie dumped her bottle of eyedrops in the iced tea pitcher that the robbers were drinking out of to give them stomach troubles.
- Spanner in the Works: The reason the jewelry store robbery went south for the robbers was because the owner of the store hired two armored car security guards to move the diamonds into high-security storage that same day, and they happened to show up during the middle of the robbery. That prompted the thieves to begin a gunfight with them.One of the guards: They weren't expecting us.
- St. Patrick's Day Episode: The episode takes place on March 17th, and most of the characters are wearing green and the diner is decked out with St. Patrick's decorations.
- Uncertain Doom: It's not stated if Shayne, the cook, survived getting shot or not.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The diamond thieves discuss The Plan during the teaser. It goes completely awry.
