Season 1:
- Shared wife: Fornell married Gibbs' second wife and he has a daughter with her, Emily. He is divorced from her, just as Gibbs' had warned him. Gibbs' gets Fornell's attention in one episode by telling an agent to tell Fornell that he is "about to make the second biggest mistake of his life!". When Fornell inquires what the first one was, Gibbs says "Marrying my second wife." Fornell: "You could have warned me." Gibbs: "I did! I told you she would leave you and wipe out your bank account before she goes", at which point Fornell turns to the young agents avidly listening to this and says, ruefully, "In my own defence, I thought he was exaggerating. He wasn't.". This banter sets the tone of his relationship with Gibbs: they can both be brutally honest and both have the same tastes.
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Season 2:
- Wily coyotes: Gibbs goes to bat for Fornell when F is arrested by his own FBI colleagues. But we see F hanging in his cell. (Oh no!). Gibbs solves the crime. Then, to the surprise of the Giblets and us, Fornell walks through the NCIS office as is nothing had happened. Gibbs worked out whodunit but G and F leave us to wonder how they dunnit. Just like we wonder how Gibbs gets those boats out of his basement...
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Season 3:
- Fornell takes Tony into custody after all the evidence leads to him.
- He helps Gibbs to find Ari after he kills Kate
- He helps with the assassin undercover mission in "Under Covers".
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Season 4:
- Loving doting fathers: Fornell and Gibbs are similar in that Fornell has a daughter around the age that Gibbs' daughter was when she died. They both dote on their girls: Fornell has a girly spare room so that his daughter can stay with him on access visits, and puts Gibbs up for the night when Gibbs' house needs fumigating. Both are oddly comfortable in a Raspberry Shortcake decor room. Fornell invokes Gibbs' aid when a villain pursues Fornell's daughter: Fornell's cry that "this goes beyond need" is what gets through to Gibbs, even though at the time, Gibbs was retired, cheesed off and not interested in doing any police work.
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Season 5:
- Fornell has been bumped upstairs into a more supervisory role. Gibbs goes to him in "Identity Crisis" when they have a problem with another FBI agent.
- Fornell is appointed to investigate the team when the body of Rene Benoit (aka The Frog) is discovered.
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Season 6:
- In the episode "Nine Lives" we learn that Fornell still speaks regularly with his ex-wife Diane. Going so far as to talk his problems out with her. After the shooting of a Mafia boss by a witness, Diane tells him that he won't face his Director alone. Gibbs will be there for him, and he is. The episode ends with an announcement that Stefano DelMar is going to take over the from Azari's shoes.
- In "Semper Fidelis", Fornell works with ICE Agent Foster-Yates and Gibbs' team to investigate the attack on a bodyguard for the Secretary of the Navy's house.
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Season 7:
- In "Jack-Knife", Fornell grows a beard and helps Gibbs and Worth take down a man doin' interstate traffiking with semi's and also arrests another one for a hit and run in Oklahoma and also murdering the marine who witnessed it.
- In "Moonlighting", Fornell comes to NCIS after Stefano DelMar is found executed along with a Navy Petty Officer. DelMar had turned into witness protection after he agreed to be state-witness for the FBI.
- In "Obsession",
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Season 8:
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Emily Fornell 
