Some NCIS episodes can be too cute for their own good — throwing in twists for the sake of them and jokes that don’t always land. Season 22, Episode 5, “In From the Cold,” seems like it’s going to be one of those episodes… but actually finds the perfect balance between keeping fans surprised and telling a cohesive story. Those who watch a lot of popular TV crime dramas will know the ending in advance, yet there’s enough happening along the way that the ride matters more than the destination.
As the title indicates, “In From the Cold” concerns a former Cold War spy who may or may not be up to his old tricks. When Captain Thomas Butler takes a doctor hostage, it certainly seems that way. NCIS does a fine job keeping audiences guessing as to Butler’s true allegiance, and the other characters on their toes. Many of the jokes still don’t land, but that’s not a huge issue when the dramatic parts work.
NCIS Season 22, Episode 5 Is a Fun Spy Drama
Once Again, the Team Runs Afoul of Another Agency
With so many episodes of NCIS, it’s no wonder that a large part of them involve the team ticking off some other governmnent agency or organization, either domestic or international. The previous episode “Sticks & Stones” saw them on the wrong side of the FBI and the acting President of the United States, albeit temporarily. So when “In From the Cold” quickly introduces an angry CIA agent in Leon Vance’s office, there’s a certain sense of deja vu. But the script at least has enough turns in it to make the audience temporarily forget about its repetitive elements.
Guest star John Getz (whom genre fans may recognize from playing Walter Kane in NCIS Season 7, Episode 14, “Masquerade”) portrays Captain Harper with the exact right balance between wily covert operative and retired Naval officer living with amnesia. The episode asks him to go back and forth between the two pretty frequently in order to keep viewers guessing about Harper’s allegiance. Boy Meets World star Matthew Lawrence also appears as Danny Harper, Thomas’ son with whom he has a strained relationship. One aspect of “In From the Cold” that doesn’t work is the suggestion that Danny may be an accomplice, because the script spends maybe two minutes on it. Lawrence is fine in the role, admittedly with much less to do than Getz.
Conrad: You people are getting played by an old man.
But while that psuedo-attempt at a plot twist is quickly aborted, there are all kinds of spy basics in this episode that will keep fans of espionage stories excited. From a missing classified file to the use of codenames and the existence of a dead drop, NCIS works in plenty of details. And of course, all of them culminate in one big spy operation, but by that point, the wheels are kind of coming off the story because of a handful of things the viewer has already deduced.
Season 22, Episode 5 Has a Very Obvious Villain
The CIA Officer Is Never a Believable Ally
Anyone who’s seen a fair amount of TV crime shows is aware that one of the genre tropes is that any outside agent is somehow a roadblock to the heroes’ investigation. Either they’re intentionally getting in the way (usually because they’re territorial), they’re holding back some valuable bit of information, or they’re just plain evil. From the moment CIA officer Conrad shows up in Vance’s office, it’s fairly obvious which one he is as he spins a story about Butler being a deep cover Russian agent, like NCIS is doing its version of FX’s hit spy drama The Americans. But NCIS is not that complicated of a show.
Alden Parker: You let a Russian spy enter the E-ring at the Pentagon, and then you let him retire?
Conrad delivers the necessary exposition, both about Butler’s presumed backstory and the fact that he accesses the Navy Archives to get his hands on a classified file known only as “Project Laurel” — which of course, he can’t tell the team (and therefore the audience) about. The way that the character is written, he’s always a little too on edge about something or other, even considering the high stakes at hand. Particularly when the Laurel file is introduced, the way Conrad explains it feels a little too dramatic. His behavior is a series of little clues that he’s actually the one who is trying to kill Butler. The only surprise is that he’s not trying to acquire the file; he’s just trying to keep anyone else from decoding it.
The scene following Conrad’s arrest, in which Parker explains to Vance that the file contained a lengthy list of crimes committed by the CIA and Conrad specifically, comes across like an explainer for the viewers, too. It’s saying what the script didn’t want to show, because it wanted to pull off that last-act twist. Which is an admirable idea, and certainly entertaining to watch, but not that surprising because of the one-dimensional way in which Conrad is written.
NCIS Season 22, Episode 5 Struggles With Humor
The 1970s Jokes Are Cute, but the Rest of the Plot Is Better
One of the staples of NCIS is how it tries to work in banter between the characters or some kind of random subplot in every episode. There are times that works as an effective diversion from the main plot, but just as many times where it doesn’t. Season 22, Episode 5 is one of the latter. The comedy subplot is about Nick Torres having a dating app profile, yet in order to make room for the back-and-forth about Harper’s loyalty, it gets much less screen time than usual. It also turns out to be irrelevant, because Torres reveals at the end of the episode that he’s deleted the profile.
But what feels forced is the 1970s-related humor. When it’s pointed out that Timothy McGee just happens to look somewhat like Harper’s old espionage contact Sparrow, it’s shades of The Rookie’s obvious undercover story. “In From the Cold” isn’t quite as awkward as that, because the similarity between McGee and the dead man isn’t dragged out very long, but it’s still very on the nose. There are a few giggles at watching McGee and Knight dressed up in 1970s clothing to sell the ruse that the team is trying to pull on Conrad… but the whole thing never stops feeling like an excuse to make jokes, visual or otherwise, about the decade. When McGee later reveals his fake sideburns are glued to his face, that’s one of those moments when NCIS is throwing in an extra joke it doesn’t need to.
Timothy McGee: Apparently we have no problem torturing me with the ’70s.
“In From the Cold” is really about Harper’s relationship with his son, and his battle with dementia — a fact that the script knows, because it ties everything together in an “only on TV” kind of bow when Vance produces another file that reveals to Parker (and therefore Danny and also the viewers) that Harper was never a double agent, but in fact a decorated hero who helped stop the Cold War. It’s a convenient ending, but that doesn’t really matter, because the payoff is the emotional reunion between father and son. When NCIS Season 22, Episode 5 leans on those two characters, it’s a heck of a lot of fun and also worth a few smiles.