airdate: May 17, 2011
written by: Gary Glasberg
directed by: Dennis Smith

• DiNozzo: "I blame the one-eyed tea bag, he's the one who screwed this up."
  
  
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• EJ Barrett's Uncle is Secretary of the Navy Phillip Davenport.
  
• Palmer is getting married.
  
• The new SecNav meets with Vance and brings in DiNozzo. DiNozzo is given top secret clearance. An Agent is selling top-secret information and DiNozzo is to investigate it without the rest of the team knowing. DiNozzo is given a a folder with information as to who he is "handling". DiNozzo looks shocked for a moment but nods that he doesn't have a problem with it.
  
• Gibbs made Mike Franks casket (we saw the beginning of it's creation in Recruited).
  
• SecNav resigned after his niece, EJ Barrett, survived.
• The New SecNav was brought in immediately and stirred things up at NCIS.
• Gibbs, Ray, Tony and McGee save Ziva after Cobb abducted her from Ray's hotel room and left tied up at his deceased father's old farm, but Ziva tells them that her abduction was just a diversion to get them away from NCIS.
• Ziva takes Ray back and Ray promises to marry her once he comes back from his out of the country assignment when he gives her an empty ring box in the breakroom at NCIS.
• Leyla and Amira came up for Franks' funeral. Gibbs accompanied the Marines in carrying Franks to his burial plot then he gave the US flag that was draped over Franks' coffin to Amira as he joined them and his team before whispering something to Leyla.
• Ziva was the only character not shown at Mike Franks funeral. (This is an explanation of this from Executive Producer Gary Glasberg: "There are actually two answers. The first has to do with Ziva's training as a former Mossad operative, her life experiences, and how she personally deals with death. Not attending Mike Franks' funeral was in no way a sign of disrespect. We've all seen Ziva grieve. I think it's fair to say she would do so in her own private way as she saw fit. Ziva also knew she had limited time to say goodbye to Ray before he left on his mission. Franks would never hold that against her. In fact he'd probably insist she 'stop hangin' around a cemetery and follow her heart.")
  

• Rule #16: If someone thinks they have the upper hand, break it.
  
• EJ removes a microchip from Levin's arm without the knowledge of Gibbs, Ducky or anyone else.
  
• Gibbs has a letter that was left by Franks.

• Chat about the season 8 finale, Pyramid, here!
  
• What did EJ remove from Levin's arm and why?
• Who is the person Tony is handling? Who is the Mole? Why can't Gibbs know?
  

• 9.01 Nature of the Beast After spending months tracking down his target, Tony is left with the blood of an NCIS agent on his hands and it’s up to Gibbs to help him put the pieces of the puzzle together.

• Matt Craven (Secretary of the Navy Clayton Jarvis)
• Jude Ciccolella (Secretary of the Navy Phillip Davenport)
• Tehmina Sunny (Leyla Shakarji)
• Vera Miao (Pamela Cook)
  

• Brian Dietzen (Jimmy Palmer)
• Sarah Jane Morris (NCIS Special Agent E.J. Barrett)
• Muse Watson (Mike Franks)
• Enrique Murciano (Ray Cruz)
• David Dayan Fisher (Trent Kort)
• Kerr Smith (Navy Lieutenant Jonas Cobb)
• Alimi Ballard (NCIS Special Agent Gayne Levin)
• Matthew Willig (NCIS Special Agent Simon Cade)
  

• NCIS Season Finale Preview: What Next?!
  
  
• Why didn't Ziva attend Mike Franks' funeral?
  
  
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