NCIS fans, remember Gibbs and his refurbished boat? Well, it looks like the show is in store for another restoration project.
At the end of Monday’s episode, Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) told the gang about his plans for a new vehicle, a very special car.
As the episode opened, the son of a gun range owner found a dead body in the back of a junky old car. The dead guy was a Navy reservist, so that’s why NCIS came to the scene. And Torres winced when the other agents made fun of the car.
Jimmy Palmer, the NCIS medical examiner, suggested that the team cut out the car’s back seat to look for evidence. And, Jimmy said they could use the back seat as a make-shift gurney. The dead guy’s body was riddled with bullets, so it needed some support. But Torres wanted the car towed to the office. He definitely had an interest in the car.
By the end of the episode, once the agents figured out that the victim’s boss had shot him, Torres explained why the car hit him in the feels.
“I’m taking matters into my own hands,” Torres said. “Stella is coming home with me.”
Stella? Yes, Torres named the junky car. That’s because the car reminded him of memories from his past. He showed the team a photo of his teenaged self with his first car. And the car was similar to the one everyone mocked to kick off the episode.
So Torres explained Stella. “She was my very first girlfriend, my first car. I saved for two years for car. But I was t-boned on the way to pick up pizza.”
Then Torres pronounced that he was going to “make good by giving Stella her groove back. I really could use a project like that right now.” So Gibbs had a boat, Torres gets a car.
Throughout the NCIS episode, some of the characters talked about issues that had been giving them anxiety. Kasie (Diona Reasonover) conceded that she was thinking about buying a gun. She still was rattled from when hitman Paul Lemere put a knife to her throat in the NCIS office. Jess (Katrina Law) also acknowledged that she still was triggered by thoughts of an explosion that took out her previous NCIS team.
And Torres is dealing with the departure of Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and the heartbreak of losing Bishop (Emily Wickersham), his love interest. Bishop left NCIS for a deep undercover assignment at the end of season 18.
So why not tinker with a car? It worked for Gibbs all those years. Except as we all know, Gibbs refurbished the boat in his basement. He had to knock out a wall to get the boat out of the bottom of his house. And then in the season 18 finale, the boat blew up in the middle of a lake. (We didn’t know then that Lemere rigged the boat to explode).
Torres promised the team that he wouldn’t be like Gibbs. “His boat was in the basement,” Torres said. “I’m keeping Stella in the garage.”
Then Parker came up with another nickname, calling Stella “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Keep it with Outsider for NCIS details and maybe even news about Torres’ car.
