Engaged (Part II)

In this episode Tony faces his fear of being around toddlers. Michael Weatherly plays Tony. Weatherly's daughter was born a few months after this episode aired.

This episode has a lot of good things. Our heroes are almost always successful in stopping major terrorists acts. Plus some heroic action on the ground in Afghanistan. There are some reflective moments as well. Jamie Ray Newman as Chaplin Burke is a good supporting character for the story. There are even some scenes of Gibbs backstory. It is a tad confusing as to where was Shannon during it all, but young Gibbs doesn't cross any romantic lines with Matteson.

This episode originally showed in 2011, about a decade before the disastrous exit of Afghanistan by the US. Watching the efforts of Lt. Flores to build a future for young Afghan girls, I can't help think about what has been going on there in the past few years. There are real stories in the news about how young Afghan women who had experienced some professional success previously are now being stripped of all those opportunities and even many of their rights as human beings. Though the girls fictional Flores helped were also fictional, they represented real people and all the things Flores had done would now be undone. This adds another element of sadness to this story which was never intended when it was written.