Tony's Tuesday Review: 9.19 The Good Son

[dragonheart]

 Episode Title: 9.19 The Good Son

Reviewed by: dragonheart

Words: 1091

Caf-Pow Rating: 3.5 out of 5

 I remember liking this episode okay when it first aired which was a little unexpected at the time as I usually don’t like Vance centric episodes.  It’s not because I don’t like Vance, but because I usually find him boring.  While Director Vance is an important part of NCIS (must have a director), he isn’t really part of the “team” and I am more about the team.  My second viewing of this episode may have changed my opinion on that a bit – Vance may be more “team” than I realized.

 

Another thing that I liked about this episode was that while it was character centric it wasn’t an origins episode.  I know a lot of people really like the origins episodes where we learn about the character’s past, but most of the time I feel those episodes wreck canon and retconn information that we have lived with for seasons.  Personally, I am more interested in what is going on with the characters here and now and where they are headed for the future.  Sure, their pasts shape who they are today and I like learning tidbits about their pasts, I just don’t like whole episodes devoted to it.

 

In this episode we got to see a lot of “personal” Vance and “personal” Vance is much more interesting to me than “professional “Vance”.  We also learned quite a bit about his family dynamic which was quite revealing.  One of the things that I noticed about the Vance household is that while he may be in charge at NCIS, at home Jackie is clearly the force the reckoned with. 

 

When the episodes spoilers/previews came out about this episode, I wasn’t happy that yet again another family member is a suspect in one of the cases.  It seems every time DiNozzo Senior shows up he is involved (usually in a bad way) in the case; poor Tony, no wonder he doesn’t like his dad to visit.  Same thing for Eli David (always involves Mossad), and true again for McGee’s grandmother Penny and the whole Annex Principle.  The only exception to this so far has been the introduction of Abby’s brother Kyle Davis.  Just a little speculation on my part:  the next time we see Kyle (sometime in Season 10 according to GG); I bet money he is somehow involved in a case.

 

In this case, the family member involved was Vance’s brother in law Michael.  Michael is Jackie’s younger brother and we see there is some tension between Michael and Jackie.  We later learn that Michael has been a screw up his whole life and while Jackie loves him dearly, she doesn’t want to further expose her family to his short comings.  What I found really interesting is the love and support that Vance offers Michael.  For some reason, these two men have bonded and Vance has faith in him when no one else does.  Even though all the evidence points to his guilt in the death of a marine, Vance maintains that he is innocent.  Because of Vance’s continued faith in Michael, Jackie begins to come around and you can see the brother and sister reconciling. 

 

We get a nice glimpse of the domestic life of the Vance family household, the kids doing their homework and later playing video games with their Uncle Mike and Jackie happily preparing dinner while she watches lovingly over her newly reconciled family.  This is juxtaposed with scenes of the team uncovering evidence piece by piece of Michael’s guilt.

 

As Gibbs and the team begin to suspect that Michael is not as innocent as he appears, Vance remains staunchly in his corner – almost to the point of interfering in the investigation.  But, we know Gibbs won’t stand for that and we see a great scene with this two powerful men squaring off against each other.

 

Throughout the episode, I was a firm believer that Michael was innocent despite all the evidence to the contrary.  This is almost formulaic NCIS – family member appears guilty, the evidence is stacked against them, the team begins to suspect them as truly culpable causing a little family and team angst, but soon the truth is found out, the family member is exonerated, we get a little familial bonding and all is well again.

 

Imagine my utter surprise when it didn’t play out this way and Michael was truly guilty of murder.  The thing that killed me the most about that was the anguish that it caused Vance.  He was devastated and there was some mighty fine acting by Rocky Carroll.  For the first time since Vance was introduced to the show, I felt something for him other than anger, apathy and boredom – my heart actually broke when his did.  The ending scene of him with his son was as powerful the second time around as it was the first if not even more so.

 

I know a few people in the fandom were upset about the way it turned out and that Michael was guilty and they had themselves a little racism rant. After all, the first family member to actually kill someone in cold blood turned out to be a young black man – not cool was their cry.

 

For me it was a clever turn of events and race had absolutely nothing to do it.  The thought that he was a young black man accused of killing a white man never even entered my mind (as I am sure it didn’t enter the minds of the writers, directors, producers, actors) and it’s a sad statement about our country and the racial climate in general that this was even an issue.

 

I thought it was very good storytelling that the brother in law of the NCIS Director could be and actually was guilty of murder.  It made it a more powerful story than if it had played out ad nauseam like we thought it was going to play out and that combined with the exceptional performance by Rocky Carroll made this a good episode, and it only got better the second time around.

 

This episode made me really like Vance and in hind sight I think it was kind of a turning point for his character, he is more of a team player now and less of a power hungry politician.  Don’t get me wrong – he still plays the political game, but now he plays it with another end in sight and with a different perspective.

Comments

[proseac]

I agree with your take on this episode - the racism concept didn't even occur to me until other people brought it up. What does that say about THEM? Hmmm...

I love seeing Vance in his familial environment, and I hope we continue to see more of that. He's the one character on the show with a "normal, domestic family" and it's nice to see that someone is capable of having that.

I think this was one of the better episodes from last season. It's my next drabble too, coincidentally!