Mother's Day

Great episode with a surprise ending. In my view, it's good to get more insight into the main characters' personal lives to understand them better. Jethro's relationship with his mother-in-law Joann following the deaths of Shannon and Kelly needed to be explored and this did it very well. Joann tells DiNozzo that she had always liked Jethro and was happy when he and Shannon married, implying that she knew him as a youngster. However, it was implied in another episode that Jethro first met Shannon at the train station as he was leaving for the Marine Corps. I could never understand how they could not have met previously while growing up in the small town of Stillwater. Nonetheless, one of the best shows in this long series. Let's hope it continues!

The flashback shows young Gibbs and his late wife looking very young with her mother not liking Gibbs taking away her daughter. She seems suitably elderly in this episode but her fiancé is age 63? Probably they would have made him older but then he wouldn't be active navy so they wouldn't get the case, so for the plot to work we have to believe Gibbs' mother in law is a major cougar...by 15 years at least.

This is one of my favorite segments of the long-running series, thanks to a beautifully written, directed and acted ending (which I won't give away, to avoid spoiling the fun).

Harmon brings up his game to meet the challenge of acting opposite the great Gena Rowlands, cast as his estranged, ex-mother-in-law. Since he's investigating a murder, and she becomes a "person of interest" if not the prime suspect (wow -I can imagine Gena vs. Helen Mirren already!), the finale is fraught with suspense. But I'm singling it out for a back-of-the-neck tingle in the surprise execution of the story's final twist -immensely satisfying, and up there (in reverse) with the Bogie/Mary Astor climax in John Huston's THE MALTESE FALCON. Also worth noting is the denouement which follows, featuring a brilliantly ambiguous facial expression by Rocky Carroll summing up the whole story.

The public has in a rare example of good taste made this the numero uno show on TV, and they have been rewarded with classic acting in this segment.

Great episode with a surprise ending and relatively few plot hole for NCIS