Gone (NCIS)

Plot

A naval officer is killed while stopping the abduction of his teenage daughter Lydia and her friend Rosie. Lydia gets away and sees her father die, but Rosie is captured. The team looks for the missing girl, first suspecting a registered sex offender who had been tracking Rosie online, but they rule him out. Lydia tries again and again to describe the kidnappers but cannot.

Ziva takes Lydia into her care because the girl’s mother is deployed on an aircraft carrier, and helps her deal with losing her father. When the team learns the kidnapping is part of a human trafficking operation, Gibbs asks Miranda Pennebaker, a woman who deals in illegal sales, for help. She says she has never sold people but points him in the right direction. After one kidnapper turns up dead because Rosie used his phone to send a text asking for help, Gibbs orders Ziva and Abby to guard Lydia at his house.

A man breaks in but is quickly subdued and arrested. He turns out to be a family friend of both Lydia and Rosie. He admits that human traffickers offered him half a million dollars to find the two girls and drive the van used in the kidnapping. He broke into the safe house because he heard Lydia might be able to identify him.

Using his information, the team catches the kidnappers before Rosie is sold. Meanwhile, Tony gets jealous when he finds out Ziva has plans with Shmeil, a friend from Israel. Shmeil turns out to be an elderly man who has known Ziva since she was three, and they both invite Tony to join them for dinner.

Production

For the episode "Gone," the writing team of Reed Steiner and Scott Williams, with direction by James Whitmore, Jr., started from a challenge posed by showrunner Gary Glasberg. He asked what new plot could unite Ziva David and Abby Sciuto, a rare pairing on the show. The solution came through a common goal: the well-being of a teenage girl grieving her father’s death while hoping for her missing best friend’s return. In October 2012, TV Line reported that Alex Kingston had joined the cast as Miranda Pennebaker, a character with dubious ethics. Glasberg praised Kingston, saying she perfectly captures the role, and hinted that viewers might encounter her again.

Reception

Airing on November 27, 2012, the NCIS episode "Gone" pulled in 19.76 million live viewers and scored a 3.6/10 share among adults 18–49. That rating point equals one percent of all U.S. TV households, while the share reflects the percentage of active sets tuned in. The episode won the night for both NCIS and CBS in total viewers, beating its spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles, which came in third with 14.49 million. Compared to the prior episode "Shell Shock (Part II)", "Gone" saw gains in both total audience and the key adult demographic. TV Fanatic's Mary Powers rated it 4.7 out of 5, praising the show for blending a strong case with character development and a good dose of humor.