NCIS!

[ivyfic]

I stayed home sick yesterday, which was definitely a good choice, but am now back at work, annoying my neighbors with coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose every five minutes. Yesterday I watched WALL*E, which is definitely a comfort movie, but maybe not the best choice for when I have a sinus infection. In the theater, the end of that movie had me shedding a tear or two. In the privacy of my own home? Bawling. And making my nose even more stuffed up.

You know what the suckiest thing about staying home sick is? Even though you're home from work, you can't actually make a dent on your list of chores. Because of the whole sick thing. Curses.


In random segue, NCIS! I was actually really happy with this episode. We didn't get the Tony's father beat him as a child backstory used in so many stories, but we got plenty of indication that his father was emotionally abusive, or at least negligent, and something of a crook. Tony DiNozzo, Sr. being broke was no big surprise, but I fully expected Jr. to learn that the reason he can't withdraw money from the account his father is trustee on is because his father had cleaned him out. They were so totally setting it up for something like that.

But I loved that dear daddy's arrival completely throws Tony off his game, I loved that Gibbs hit him about the head with his stupid cowboy hat, and I loved that Gibbs immediately knew Tony was acting like an ass because his dad was in town.

And I loved Gibbs dragging Senior away to berate him about how he treats Tony! Oh, it was the new father figure vs. old father figure pissing match of my dreams. My little heart went pit-a-pat when Gibbs brought up the fact that Tony almost died of the plague and his father didn't show up! I mean, it's a bit of retconning there, but omg! The writers remember that "S.W.A.K." did in fact happen!

AND, to top that off, we finally got proof that Tony comes over to Gibbs's house for (intimate) dinners on at least an occasional basis, judging by how routine it looked. And the dinner was one enormous steak that they split and a six-pack of beer. And they talked about their feeeeelings. <3

Now, what I desperately want, though is a follow-up to that last scene where Gibbs realizes how disturbingly similar to Tony Sr. Gibbs often acts. I mean, that whole never telling him he's proud of him thing? Sure Gibbs will tell Tony's dad that he's the best junior agent he knows (and that he hides behind a clown face! Can we have a perfect emo tear for that line?), but has he ever told Tony that? And what about the whole "my dad is a mystery to me" thing. I mean, clearly Gibbs withholds personal information from his team, even taunts them with it. Just look at how desparate Tony is to learn about Gibbs's childhood in the ep where we meet Gibbs's dad.

So I want a fic where Gibbs, fresh from defending Tony to his father, sees he's doing some of the exact same things. It would be even more awesome as slash--I mean, kind of uncomfortable making to meet Tony's dad and realize that Gibbs is pretty much the same, no? Can we say "daddy issues"?

In conclusion, I think that may be the happiest-making NCIS episode yet. It was a total validation of fanon Tony. I loved it.

Comments

[elmyraemilie.livejournal.com]

Me too, me too! For all that, especially the fic.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

All this time people have been writing about how Tony is secretly brilliant and competent and Gibbs knows that and they have private dinners, despite the fact that on the screen Gibbs is mostly entirely dismissive of Tony, and then there it all was!

I mean, I don't think the writers particularly meant to imply that this has always been going on, it was just that the obvious choice in talking about Tony's dad is to contrast him to Gibbs, which requires an end of episode conversation between Tony and Gibbs, but oh, the implications are fantastic.

I also kind of love that Ziva is charmed by Tony's dad. Clearly she has a thing for the DiNozzo style. And that Abby, despite knowing Tony the longest, besides Gibbs, clearly knows nothing about his family. The way these characters pounce on any scrap of each other's back stories is always amusing. And it shows that, despite being their own work family, they don't actually know all that much about each other.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Aww, Wall-E gets me every time, too. I might not always cry, but just about every time, my heart breaks when he gets crushed by the thing. I get all panicked that he's not going to make it! ::wibbles::

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I was tearing up for most of the first half hour of the movie. When he watches Hello Dolly and holds his own hand? *wibble*

I put on the director's commentary while taking a nap, and in that he says he spent a year with a group of people storyboarding the first act of the movie. Only after they had done that did they even come up with the plot for the rest, which is why there is such a discontinuity. But it's interesting to hear that he started out with this idea of a lone robot still doing his task long after the creators are gone, and backed into the rest of the premise. Well, if he's cleaning up trash and there are no humans around, what circumstances would have led to that? So the whole environmentalist message of the movie is a consequence of the character of WALL*E, not the other way round. And it really does feel like that.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I remembered his Oscar speech where he's like, "I just wanted to make a movie about robots in love." The environmentalism was always tacked on, perceived more or less depending on your sympathy (or antipathy) for such messages.