While in Mexico, Gibbs meets Paloma Reynosa, the daughter of Pedro Hernandez. Paloma wants revenge for Gibbs’ murder of her father twenty years previously and threatens to kill everyone he has ever met. It is revealed that Alejandro is Paloma’s brother and that he opened the case of his father’s murder in an attempt to keep Gibbs out of his sister’s reach whilst still delivering justice, but things are complicated by the loss of Abby’s report from “Patriot Down” – which has been intercepted by Allison Hart to prevent it from reaching Mexico. Meanwhile, Ziva has passed her citizenship and is expecting Tony and McGee to attend her citizenship ceremony. Tony is forced to break his promise to her when the situation escalates, and he is tasked with accompanying Mike Franks in shadowing Rivera when Paloma crosses the border. The episode ends with Paloma travelling to Pennsylvania and the home of Jackson Gibbs. The epynomous fifty-first rule is revealed to be “Sometimes you’re wrong”.





The team is shocked when they discover that a charred corpse found on the beach belongs to Special Agent Lara Macy, a fellow NCIS agent and a close friend of Gibbs. They discover that Macy’s current case was the rape of a Navy sailor. While they manage to find the rapist, the case is completely unrelated to the murder. Meanwhile, Abby confronts Gibbs about the murder he committed in Mexico, asking him what to do, and Gibbs simply tells her to do her job and file the full report. Gibbs soon becomes convinced that Colonel Bell is responsible and leaves for Mexico. When he finally arrives, he finds Mike Franks’ house burned to the ground as well as the bodies of several of Bell’s men. Gibbs is then captured by one of Bell’s henchmen, who reveals that the body that Gibbs thought was Franks is in fact Colonel Bell. Gibbs is then knocked unconscious before he can ask the henchman who he’s really working for.





Abby and McGee stay the night together while hunting for a serial killer.





DiNozzo finds himself captivated by a woman he’s never met while investigating the death of her brother.





The team finds themselves in a race against time when a terrorist group threatens to detonate “dirty bombs” in the D.C. area.[15] As the team tries to track down the bombs, their investigation is hampered when Hart returns to represent one of their suspects. Despite this, they manage to discover that the entire bomb plot was an elaborate hoax set up by a private intelligence agency to scare Congress into approving a bill that would award private defense contractors billions of dollars in funding.





When the NCIS team finds a dead Navy petty officer and FBI informant, they call in Agent Fornell to assist with the investigation. Fornell reveals that a string of similar security leaks have been occuring, and they trace the source to a private security company. They also discover that their NCIS polygraph specialist, Susan Grady, works part time at the same company. After retrieving her, the security company’s office is destroyed in an explosion and Susan reveals that she stole some polygraph data for personal use. Abby manages to deduce that the killers inadvertently killed themselves in the explosion, leading Gibbs and Fornell to the real mastermind, a federal judge. She went on a secret crusade to kill informants who would take reduced sentences in return for their testimony, and wanted to destroy the polygraph data as it might implicate her involvement.





Gibbs uses Holly Snow (previously seen in the episode: “Jet Lag”) to investigate a murder in the world of call girls, causing tensions within the team. After finding the body of a murdered Navy reporter, the team finds out that he was interviewing a prostitute who used to work for Holly Snow and that there have been a string of similar murders. Holly makes a deal with Gibbs to help his investigation and they track down the prostitute, who reveals that the killer is jealous of her seeing other men. At first the team believes that the killer is one of her clients, but find out it is actually her boyfriend, who is the attorney representing her. The killer kidnaps Holly, blaming her for getting his girlfriend into a life of prostitution and seeing other men. However, he is shot dead by Gibbs before he can harm her. The episode ends with Gibbs and Holly having a simple dinner together as part of their deal.





The team and Coast Guard Investigative Service join forces when a Navy diver seeking sunken treasure is murdered.





Gibbs and the team investigate the shooting of a Marine and uncovers more to his life than anyone would have ever imagined.





Secrets arise when Gibbs former mother-in-law surfaces as a witness in a murder investigation.