airdate: October 16, 2007
written by: Jesse Stern
directed by: Tom Wright

• Best is conversation in the squad room where Ziva is helping McGee choose a dog. Each is naming the breeds they prefer. Gibbs prefers Australian Shepherds. "They're workin' dogs". The team sits down and starts working. They get call about Ducky holding a corpse that NCIS doesn't have jurisdiction to hold, and team starts to get up to go to Ducky's lab. Gibbs just barks "Sit". They sit. Then he says "Stay." They just look at him. He walks away and grins to himself and says, sotto voice, "Roll over."
  
  
• Fornell goes mad at his agent who emailed the report on the dead suspect instead of actually telling her boss (Fornell). He says "I don't give a flying crap what the book says..."
  
  
• Ducky fumes on his way to the M.E who did not properly check the body of the murdered man and lets Gibbs know that he would not go easy on whoever it was. However on meeting the doctor , it turns up that its a lady doctor and Ducky seems to be somewhat charmed by her. While leaving , Gibbs makes fun of Ducky by saying, "I hope she recovers from the tongue- lashing you gave her!"
  
  
• We finally realize why Abby is so "Abby".
  
  Abby:Of course, mercury is toxic. So you shouldn't let kids break open thermometers and play with it."
  Gibbs: "Speaking from personal experience, Abs?" McGee: "Actually explains a lot."
  
  
• At the end: Gibbs, Tony and Ziva in MTAC, watching Courtney and Fornell arrest the Eraser. Ziva asks Tony if he got her number, and Tony says, "Who, Courtney? Nahh." Ziva smiles like a cat and says, "I did..."(pauses, still grinning), "She wants to learn how to fight." Effortlessly steals a piece of Tony's popcorn. Gibbs' face when he leans to look at the pair of them and...phoomph.
  
  
• The entire part of the "date" with Tony and Courtney, with Ziva and McGee watching from MTAC and making comments...Ziva is jealous!

• McGee wants to have a dog, a companion who will greet him and show him affection when he returns home. Ziva suggests the pitbull, Tony believes a cocker spaniel is more McGee, while Gibbs recommends a Australian shepherd.
  
  
• Ducky does not like people who do incomplete job - be it a M.E. leaving a body unchecked or a assistant not biding his demands.

• The team investigates the murder of a man that doesn't exist. His death was originally ruled natural causes. Ducky discovers that "John Doe" has been killed instead of just died. It soon turns out he was involved in shady business: identity erasing and such.
  
  
• Ziva bonds with a woman after initial awkwardness. The woman is an FBI agent who works for Fornell.
  
  
• Real-life NCIS Director Thomas A. Betro made a cameo appearance on this episode of "NCIS." (See photo of him with Mark Harmon below.)
  This is the second appearance of a real-life NCIS Director on the Set after David Brant has his one on "3x09 Frame-Up".
  
  
• Torri Higginson, "Dr. Elizabeth Weir" from Stargate SG1 (introduced in Season 8) and Leader of the Atlantis expedition on Stargate: Atlantis. She played that (recurring) role in 64 episodes until Season 4, episode 11 and the last time in Season 5 episode 5.
  
  
• Dorian Brown ("FBI Special Agent Courtney Krieger") plays the role of "Katie" in the new ABC Series "Roommates".
  
  
• The website McGee is using to find a dog, www.petfinder.com, is an actual website operated by Discovery Communications, dedicated to finding homes for animals in need of adoption. One of the dogs in the photographs belongs to script writer Jesse Stern.

• ADD DISCUSSION THREAD
  
  
• ADD DISCUSSION THREAD

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• Dorian Brown (FBI Special Agent Courtney Krieger)
• Torri Higginson (Dr. Jordan Hampton)
• Nikita Ager (Shannon O'Hara)
• Joe Egender (Robert Graves)
• Emerson Brooks (Navy Lt. Carl Greer)

• Brian Dietzen (Jimmy Palmer)
• Joe Spano (Senior FBI Agent T.C. Fornell)

• Identity Crisis - Blog Entry
  
  
• Gibbs & Fornell in "Identity Crisis"
  
  
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