“Lost and Found” first aired Tuesday, November 20, 2007.
“Lost and Found” further develops the character of Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) against the backdrop of a plot that borders on 30 seconds of human interest on Good Morning America. But effective it is, making this episode one of the more touching ones in the series history and certainly the most touching this season so far.
Special Agent Tim McGee (Sean Murray), in keeping with his wholesome, all-American image, turns out to be the leader of a Boy Scout troop. The episode opens with McGee and his troop inspecting NCIS Forensics Specialist Abby Sciuto's (Pauley Perrette) laboratory where he is specifically demonstrating the automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS). Abby gets a volunteer from the scout troop, Carson Taylor (Dominic Scott Kay), who has heckled her for her tattoos and has a budding interest in the cinema like one of NCIS’ own. Abby runs the young man’s prints and voila, hits a match for a child allegedly abducted with the date of last sighting.
The NCIS team divines that the father, Brian Matthews/Taylor (Chris William Martin), technically abducted his son when his in-laws won custody of the child. Naturally, the NCIS team would like to have a chat with Mr. Taylor and Gibbs goes and interviews Taylor’s second wife, Navy Lt. Elaine Taylor (Karis Campbell). She explains that her husband provides survivalist training and currently has a class in the wilderness. She claims he has no phone and that she has little knowledge regarding his past. The team gathers up Mr. Taylor’s computer and discovers from his fingerprints that he is wanted for a long cold murder.
Ziva telephones the DC Metro cops' cold case squad, who assure her they will hand deliver their file on the old murder. DiNozzo chides Ziva for having fallen for an old ruse as hand delivery means the Metro cops want in on the collar, helping themselves to the NCIS headquarters. Gibbs is nonplussed as he is turf-conscious. However, a subdued Gibbs dispatches the Metro boys out of the picture without breaking a sweat.
Gibbs proceeds to have a sit down with the Director, who is reading the Stars and Stripes where she peruses an article about Lt. Col. Hollis Mann who is retiring after 22 years and moving to Hawaii. That little tidbit of information pretty well puts the Gibbs-Mann question to bed (pardon that bad pun). Mann saw the writing on the wall in "Ex-File" and bailed big time on the difficult Gibbs. The Director closes the paper, receiving Gibbs who desires the Director’s signature on the social services paperwork for Carson as the team cannot continue looking after the young man. The Director elects to take Carson home with her instead. She then sits down to look at the paperwork, realizing that Gibbs instead left her the case file, having set her up for the experience of being a mother for a bit. Chaucer would have liked Gibbs’ sense of humor.
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