NCIS Season 22 Episode 13 Review: Bad Blood

For a brief moment on NCIS Season 22 Episode 13, Nick channels the Bionic Man. Read our review to see how it was connected to the case.

The post NCIS Season 22 Episode 13 Review: Bad Blood appeared first on TV Fanatic.

Working at a blood bank is good work, and a woman was terrorized on NCIS Season 22 Episode 13 while doing her job.

Not only was she assaulted by a fentanyl-taking lunatic, but all of the blood she worked so hard to collect and that regular people were so kind to donate was destroyed.

Frankly, that was a bummer.

But before we get to that sad development, we need to discuss McGee’s kids’ latest fundraiser and his desire to beat Brendan Banks, the Cool School Dad, by assuring his kids sold the most coffee.

To begin with, Mr. Banks looked kind of skeevy to me. If I saw him, the last thing that would come to mind was being cool. However, kids are different, and parents need someone to look up to when it comes to raising them.

For McGee’s crowd, Banks was the it man.

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I hate to be that gal, but I’m going to use a “back in my day” reference. Because, back in my day, we had to sell our own stuff for recognition. My dad never took any of our fundraisers to work. We hoofed it around the neighborhood selling door to door.

But those days have gone. Kids don’t even walk to school anymore (at least not that I can tell, even though I assume that still happens somewhere in middle America, right??), let alone knock on strangers’ doors and sell them wares.

So, why is this relevant to the blood bank mystery? Because McGee was peddling coffee, and Kasie drank several large cups of Jitter Joe, which, frankly, scares the heck out of me.

But Kasie was practically mainlining Jitter Joe, which, with three times the amount of caffeine than regular coffee, is quite dangerous. As a scientist, she would know that. I know it made for a cute segment, but there’s nothing cute about ODing on caffeine.

However, to achieve the results of DNA single-cell analysis of over 100 samples and to have the results ready before the van was fully processed would have required a miracle.

If you want it semi-plausible, a few days would be the minimum analysis time. If it’s urgent and they “pull some strings,” maybe 24-48 hours (but that’s still pushing it). But if they claim results in a few hours, it’s pure TV magic.

And, frankly, that magic often pulls me out of the story. But put Kasie on speed, and it really pulls me out. It was way too silly for the seriousness of the case.

During NCIS Season 22 Episode 13, all kinds of things were tossed around, including killing a law officer, a killer on tranc, a reference to the “red market,” a killer medical professional, and T.J. Thyne’s return as Fletcher Voss.

Thyne initiated the role on NCIS Season 21 Episode 7, a Vance-centric episode with lots of nostalgia. Voss is clearly written to be some sort of Elon Musk counterpart (before he became the President’s bestie), right down to suggesting that he finds talent rather than having any.

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Here, his name comes up during the investigation when the team links a blood donor Parker called Totally Normal Lauren (which stuck like glue in my head) to a company called Life Sequence.

Life Sequence supposedly used your DNA profile to make recommendations for better health. Your every move would be tracked and processed through a smartwatch. Of course, introducing such a gadget made the story a little sillier.

Totally Normal Lauren was victimized due to her connection to Voss, but her blood donation linked her to the crime. At first glance, her profile revealed nothing outstanding. But when they went to visit TNL, the smell of bleach in her garage was overwhelming.

Inside, they found a barrel filled with goo and a human skull. Was it Totally Normal Lauren?

Watching Jimmy ladle the goop out of the barrel was nauseating. I can’t imagine what it must have smelled like in there. It’s funny how they pretend that work would carry on as normal, without anyone shielding themselves from the putrid remains.

Of course, Kasie figured out that Lauren’s body was placed in the acid between 8 and 10 pm on Saturday night. Can they really get specific results like that from goop? It seems unlikely, but hey, we seem to live for this kind of stuff, given the popularity of nonsensical crime investigations on TV!

Initially, they thought whoever was at fault might not have wanted their DNA tracked, but that idea was a flash in the pan.

To get a better understanding of the product and how it could lead to murder, Parker and Jess visited Life Sequence, where they discovered “perfect specimens,” beta testers who are willing to be tracked and monitored 24/7 to make the product better.

Honestly, that was lost on me. How would a bunch of people running on treadmills in Life Sequence headquarters be considered beta testers for a real-world product?

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It doesn’t matter, especially since it led to Nick going undercover, channeling the Bionic Man on the treadmill, and saying, “No limits,” not only to communicate with Kasie and McGee but also to prove to himself that he deserves the Perfect Specimen designation.

Even after all these years on NCIS, it still makes me giggle to think that Wilmer Valderrama is the same guy who played Fez on That ’70s Show.

But when Nick was leaning over the table and pursing his lips, hoping to become NCIS’s Perfect Specimen representation, that comedic training worked well.

While I’m complaining about the realities of NCIS, it’s a good time to point out that the beacon Nick placed on the treadmill during his audition was like a, well, you know — beacon. Upon entering the room, I would have seen the red light under the treadmill shelf immediately.

But his Bionic adventure scored useful intel, and Voss’s actions were tracked to and from Totally Normal Lauren’s house. But if he were involved with her death, he wouldn’t have worn his gizmo. Of all people, he knew how invasive it was.

Plus, she was pregnant with his child, and while Voss has been set up as a bad guy, he’s never really been a bad guy, you know?

Thyne is so good with these roles that he makes a guy like Voss sympathetic, even though he was hardly someone to root for when the “Bad Blood” (or “A Thousand Yards”) began.

But then Fletcher was almost killed right in front of Parker and Vance, who were questioning him.

As much as I wanted his device to have allowed a killer to remotely detonate him in some way, it was just a regular stroke that took him down, instigated by the stress of revising TNL and their unborn child’s deaths… and…

…Carefully planned by whoever was crafting his select meal plan through his own company. Oh, what tangled webs we weave.

As it turned out, the algorithm and the sequencer were all a lie. Voss iced out the product’s creator (whose name I totally missed) after he bought her company when he thought he was better suited to figure it out.

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She wasn’t the killer, either. The hippy-looking doctor, Donovan, who tracked Nick’s Perfect Specimen tryout, did it, supposedly to save others from using a shoddy product.

Who in their right mind kills someone like that under the guise of potentially saving someone else? Why not just whistleblow to the public? Maybe you have to be a murderer to understand their motivations because I certainly don’t.

With Elon Musk being a central figure in our lives, I have to wonder if Thyne will be returning again as Voss. His latest venture has been squashed, but he will keep trying. And he’s a breath of fresh air.

I can’t be the only person who would love to see Bones return. Thyne’s roles never take him all that far from Jack Hodgins, and when Voss and McGee had a bonding moment at the end, I could easily see him paying NCIS another visit.

OK. So here’s a moment for us to get real.

Is weekly coverage of a show like this (with coverage like this) something you enjoy? Should we keep it up, or should we just cover more explosive moments when they occur? We do this for you, but we have very limited engagement on NCIS posts, so I need to know if it’s hitting the right notes.

So, let me know below what you thought about the episode and whether you find this coverage valuable.

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The post NCIS Season 22 Episode 13 Review: Bad Blood appeared first on TV Fanatic.