'NCIS' recap- 'Deja Vu'

NCIS began with garbage men working and one of them is Stuart Dorfman, an old classmate of Tim’s. The two men are working during a freezing cold spell that has caused issues with them being able to unload garbage. When Dorfman goes to help get bags out of the truck, they come across the body of a woman.

The episode flashes forward to Ellie sitting at her desk at night writing a letter to deceased President Truman. She is discussing how the case made her rethink her work in both the NSA and NCIS before she goes into what happened. We see that days earlier, Ellie and Tony were watching a news report about the weather when Tim came in wearing as many layers as he could.

He asks Tony to stay at his place due to a power outage on his block and since Delilah is at her mom’s and she doesn’t allow unmarried couples under her roof, he has no place to go. Tony begins to ask Tim to get him coffee when Gibbs comes in with the case.

When the team arrives at the landfill, Tim catches up with Dorfman, who shows them an old photo of him and Tim tap dancing. Tony thinks this might be embarrassing, but Tim doesn’t mind. Gibbs gets them to focus back on the scene. Tim is able to identify the woman as Seaman Alessandra Ramos and Ducky can only tell she was shot since she is too frozen for him to look for more clues yet. Detective Jeff Katz from Metro arrives and informs Gibbs that Ramos was set to testify in a grand jury.

At the bullpen, the team discusses the case against Dominick Rubin, who Ramos spotted getting into a car after hearing gunshots at a gas station. They must figure out if Ramos’ death is related to that particular case. Later, Ellie and Tony go to the USS Barkley where Ramos had been stationed. A friend of hers reveals she had left to go to DC to attend a concert on Friday evening at Dacey’s Lounge. When asked if she was scared to testify, her friend reveals that she was more worried than Ramos.

We see Ellie writing once more and she talks about how she had a hunch regarding the case, but didn’t follow through on her feelings. Back in autopsy, Jimmy tries on a hat that belonged to Ducky’s ancestor before Gibbs comes down for results. It turns out Ducky can’t do an autopsy just yet since she still needs to thaw, but he did see that the bullet was small, meaning it could have come from Rubin.

Katz and Gibbs have Rubin in interrogation, but he claims that he has never seen Ramos before and he wouldn’t kill her as he had respect for the military. Gibbs has a gut feeling that while he may have killed the victim in Katz’s case, he is not responsible for Ramos’ death.

Abby and Tim are trying to keep warm with Bunsen burners before Abby tells him news. She found blonde hair on the inside of Ramos’ jacket and when she ran DNA, it came back to a woman named Jane Murphy. Tim heads up to the bullpen when Tony and Ellie arrive to tell Gibbs some of their own news. After learning about Jane, Gibbs takes Tim to the college dorm where she lives. But when they arrive, they see her distraught father. It turns out Jane is missing.

The team discusses the case and Jane. There is no connection between her and Ramos or her and Rubin. Gibbs notices Tim is still wearing layers and finds out Tony’s power went out, so they are hoping to go to Ellie’s.

Gibbs heads down to autopsy and finds out that Palmer had noticed an error Ducky made in observing Ramos’ wounds. He had found a fragment that was inside her armpit and is going to take it up to Abby.

Tony and Tim go to the club where the girls were last seen and find out there is surveillance, but the outside camera wires were messed with. Later, the team confirms the girls went inside the club, but then never came back out. Palmer tells Gibbs that the fragment he found looked like it was sort of GPS tracker. When Ellie finds out what it was and where it was located, she realizes it might involve a human trafficking ring that was shut down when she first began working for NSA. She goes to talk to two people, Daisy Milner from the FBI, and Adam Connors from NSA who were instrumental in taking down what they named Concubine.

Ellie talks to Daisy, who contacts someone in the Criminal Division of the FBI to see if any missing college-age women have come up. Connors arrives and is not too thrilled with restarting the trafficking ring investigation. He was the one who had discovered the ring’s location due to following a money trail. Daisy gets the bad news that over the last two months, there were other college-age women who went missing.

The team discusses the missing girls and how to find them. In the original case, one woman was found dead if she was one who fought back and they deduce this is what happened to Ramos. Daisy tells them how Adam had followed the money trail and she will do that again. Adam is going to get his original report he had written on the original case. Ellie leaves with Daisy.

As she writes, Ellie wonders if she is able to be as helpful as she wants to be.

Abby tells Tim and Tony she was able to use the serial numbers on the tracker to find the company that distributed them. It is called Daly Tech Industries so Tim and Tony leave to see if they can get a lead to who bought them. They talk to Tiffany, who is able to find out who bought the chip, but refuses to share the information until she finds out about the human trafficking. She tells them Vanderhusen Industries bought the trackers.

Jimmy is looking at Ramos’ body with Ellie. He admits that cases like these have gotten tougher since he became a father. Ellie understands, but then gets a call from Daisy to meet her. Jimmy tells Ellie to catch the people responsible.

Gibbs and Ellie arrive to find cops surrounding a car. Daisy has been shot. Adam arrives and is horrified. He gives Ellie his file and then leaves.

While writing, Ellie talks about wanting to find answers, especially now that two women died. They decided to do what they could to get information on the missing women quickly.

Abby is working on finding out the location on the GPS trackers while Tim watches. Tony arrives with bad news about Vanderhusen Industries. It is just a dummy corporation and the names provided of the buyers were bogus. Abby gets a hit on the tracker locations and is horrified to see two other girls are with the person they are tracking.

The team goes to a shipping yard to find the girls. They see two men with guns, but are able to stop them and rescue Jane and the two girls. Jane tells Gibbs that there was one man who spoke English and shot Ramos when she fought back. Her father arrives and shares an emotional reunion with his daughter while Tony and Tim come to tell Gibbs that the bullet used to kill both Ramos and Daisy came from a .380, not the same weapon as their men. They wonder where Bishop is and find out she went to see Adam.

Ellie arrives as Adam is about to get into his car to leave. She tells him that they saved the girls and want his help to put a stop to the human trafficking ring. He balks at the offer, but then Ellie admits to reading his report and realizing it wasn’t the original report. She came to the conclusion that the people involved in the ring had asked him to start it again. Ellie pulls her weapon on him and asks if he is reaching for his .380. When Adam pulls a gun, she shoots him as her team arrives for backup.

In her letter, Ellie tells the President the case made her want to work hard and continue working with her team. We see Tim is at work too and he lets Ellie know that thanks to Adam’s computer, they will be able to find the traffickers and put an end to the operation. Tony arrives, handing out sweaters to everyone in the squad room. It turns out he made sweaters with the photo of Tim and Dorfman, but this doesn’t bother Tim. Ellie discovers that a transformer blew at her apartment and now they can’t stay at her place.

Eventually, the team winds up at Gibbs’, who starts a fire and an old movie. Ellie makes herself comfortable on the couch while Tim and Tony lie on the floor and bicker over whether Tony is kicking Tim’s feet.