I"m stuck on one bit of business that I can't decide was stupid and clumsy, or genius and clever.
I run hot and cold on Vance. I either like the character, or hate the character, and I do believe he's been written extremely inconsistently throughout the seasons, so the problem is more with the writers than with me--or Vance. So he's either a total bumbler who has bumbled into his NCIS undercover career and been floated along, or he's a soooper sekrit, incredibly talented, Jason Bourne-like operative who has "retired" from spy life to take a management position.
So the bit of business I'm talking about was when his duplicitous girlfriend meets him in the restaurant, Vance is sitting with his back to the entrance. No operative worth his salt--or rookie police officer for that matter--would sit with their back to the entrance. Any entrance. Mr. HV is no longer a police officer, but to this day, he will maneuver to get his back to the wall, or at least facing the main entrance, in any restaurant we go to. Yet there was Vance, blithely sitting in that restaurant waiting for his girlfriend with his back to the door. At the very least, if I were the first to arrive and were awaiting my dining companion, I would sit so I could see them come in to wave them over.
Then later on, we learn that Vance was on to the scheme--if not the whole time, then at least partway through. So, maybe sitting with his back to the door was a careful calculation on his part, so as to look affable and incompetent and lull them into a false sense of security so he could spin his web tighter and tighter around them. But then it turns out, they really want Vance because they think he's just exactly the soooper sekrit, incredibly talented, Jason Bourne-like operative with the high ethical standards to take down the big guy. But the, wouldn't they be turned off by his amateur spy craft skill where he sits with his back to the door? Unless they know he knows they know he was doing it on purpose?
Then I got confused and gave up.
(And is the bad guy Admiral Chegwidden? Or does the actor just look like him?)
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