9 x 07 Devil's Triangle

I really enjoyed this ep too, it was very entertaining and it was great to see Fornell again, been way too long. Seeing the two boys in Vance’s office wanting to flip for who had lead on the case was awesome.

enjoyed it well enough. It was fine. I didn’t love it as much as a lot of people did though . I think maybe that’s because I’m not really *feeling* NCIS nowadays. I think The Ziva Years wore out my love and I’m just left feeling very blah about the show now. I can enjoy it – but I’m not loving it.

I enjoyed it. I laughed a lot and had a great time watching Gibbs expressions, Tobias’ reactions and Tony being Tony.
The Abby interrogating Gibbs scene bugged me – but Abby’s been bugging me lately. It’s just because I like her and I want her to grow up a little bit because I feel like she’s in danger of becoming a characterture of herself. The dressing like a Goth baby doll doesn’t work for a professional woman in her 40’s and it’s starting to really annoy me.
Tony, however, is rocking this season. He looks fantastic and I think they’re finding that balance between goofball and kick-ass detective. Sometimes I can’t tell if they’re sending out little high fives to the Tibbs crowd because is there really any alternative way to explain Tony’s little description of Gibbs? (“Gibbs is wild, Savannah. Untamed. This Diane lady must have serious game to have landed a wild beast like that.”) Even my guy friends who don’t even acknowledge slash were sending me notes this morning about it.

Is Abby in her 40s?
I know Pauley is 41 but I think Abby is meant to be younger.
If she joined NCIS straight out of college and has been there about 13 years she could still be late 30s couldn’t she?

so now it is canon that Tony has checked his drain every day for 12 years to check the amount of hairs in it? *flails*. my 13 year old even had something to say – like Tony has serious, serious issues man. having said that i check for grey hair under a special light and pluck them. every. last. one. I will not go grey….i refuse to.

It’s definitely not just you, Georgie. I feel the same way – that’s why I WROTE that scene in Two Masters. I wonder if the show thinks that Abby is such a caricature that they don’t dare change her without upsetting the fans? But she’s been allowed zero personal growth. I mean, compared with Princess Tragic/Perfect, the storyline hogger, Abby has had a great big zilch in terms of stories and character development. And she has been with the show since day one, and is always one of the top 3 characters (along with Gibbs and Tony) whenever there’s an online poll, and still she’s been criminally underused.
I just hope that this season, as they’ve sort of introduced a possibly big storyline for her, that they follow through and it IS a big storyline for her. Maybe as a result of discovering her true identity, she also re-evaluates her look. Because it is incredibly dated, and she seems stuck in some weird time warp. Even if the show thinks she’s in her mid thirties (and actually I suspect the show thinks she’s younger than that) then most women wouldn’t dress like that with the itty bitty short skirts and the collars – it’s actually kind of embarrassing to dress like a late teen/early twenty-something when you’re a professional woman in your thirties.

The showrunners might be worried about alienating fans if they attempt to change Abby. I get the impression from her tweets that Pauley loves Abby like she is so she doesn’t seem to be fighting for her to change, which could also be a factor.
I was kind of depressed at how the beginning of Abby’s big turmoil was handled – it was just too fast. I was hoping that we’d get a build up over a few episodes so we’d have some kind of emotional investment. Maybe other people still have that emotional investment in her but somewhere along the way I seem to have lost mine. It’s frustrating that she’s just static.
I’m with you – I think TPTB are trying to play Abby as younger than she is. I think I read that when she did the NCIS: LA episode they had her at 24-25, which is just dumb. That would mean that when she joined NCIS she would have been 14? (Since she was there for a few years before the show started.) Somethings the show can retcon, but when you’ve been around for a decade age really isn’t one of them.
A while back someone on NCISFicFind asked for Abby bashing stories and I almost wrote one I was so fed up with the situation. Scenes (in my head) included her getting ragged on by a 18-year-old witness who was being interviewed and happened to be wearing about the same outfit as Abby and the young woman saying something like “You’re old enough to be my Mom.” Or someone from another agency telling her to stop “flashing her middle aged ass”. Or a new head of her department telling her she has to abide by the dress code, just like everyone else. And in all of those situations she does what she always does – pouts and goes to Gibbs to fix it but he can’t. And on some level he knows they’re right.
Show-wise, I’d rather have her have an ephiphany – whether though being in an accident (like in “Two Masters”) or seeing one of those older ladies who still dye their hair, wear too much make-up to try and cover their age but just make it more obvious and are kind of embarrassing but no one ever says anything about and Abby realizes she’s gonna be that woman if she doesn’t wise up. Even if they insist on her being in her early thirties, surely they can allow her to lose the dog collar, studded bracelets and pigtails?

I have to wonder how much longer PP can pull the look off. I mean – really! She’s early 40s. I suppose it depends how long the show goes on for but after she turns 45 there is really no way she’ll be able to get away with it, surely? I really do hope they use the adoption storyline to make her question her identity in every single way and she tones down the clothes. I don’t mean she un-goths herself. Like you said, you can develop the look, and mature it.
*I* don’t dress the same way I did in my 20s or even 30s because I’ve discovered more about what suits me, and certain things really just don’t come over well when you’re older. I wore mini skirts (not often but I did wear one for a brief period!) as a 20-something but I wouldn’t now. Nothing above knee length! And it’s not about being dictated to by fashion – it’s about a change in yourself. Something you just feel isn’t what you want to be doing anymore.
We once hired a temp who showed up in a miniskirt and with her midriff showing. Nobody is going to take anyone seriously who dresses that way. It’s not that I disapproved – I didn’t care – I just thought that girl wasn’t going to get anywhere if she actually wanted a serious career.
Abby just about gets away with it because she’s a TV character but if she worked in my office I’d ask her to conform to the dress code. I also don’t think it’s fair to make guys feel uncomfortable by wearing overtly sexy clothes to the office and flash a lot of leg around. We’re there to work. People can be showing off their legs, tits and asses in their own time. And those collars – I own several but really I’d only wear them in a certain kind of club or in the bedroom in a certain kind of relationship! LOL! The idea of wearing them to work is ultra embarrassing!

even my hair dresser thinks i should get colour put in….but i hate people touching me so having a hair cut is kinda in my creepy zone. i wouldn’t mind being grey but it doesn’t just happen over night…it is a long, slow process designed to remind you just how old you are getting. as if the creeking knees and general curmudgeon-ness wasn’t a friggin clue.