A Man Walks Into a Bar... (NCIS)

The NCIS team investigates while having to deal with mandatory psychological evaluations conducted by Dr. Rachel Cranston, who is eventually revealed to be the elder sister of their late colleague and friend, Agent Caitlin Todd.

The episode begins with the death of Navy Commander Vincent Reynolds, resulting in an investigation led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs' team.

Interrogated by Gibbs and DiNozzo, Kwon reveals he's a spy from North Korea taking pictures of the weapon system on the vessel.

While the team struggles to find a motive for the death of the Commander, Abby gets a match on the weapon using the shell casing found at the crime scene, a Russian TT-30.

The two sailors who reported the death are interrogated by DiNozzo and Gibbs, and reveal that they made the suicide look like a murder in order to protect Commander Reynolds' honor.

McGee is dismayed at his lack of success with relationships, while Abby states that she misses the deceased NCIS Special Agent Caitlin "Kate" Todd.

In an effort to help her find closure, Gibbs tells her that Ziva had fatally shot her own half-brother, Kate's killer, as shown in the season 3 episode "Kill Ari (Part II)".

At the end of the episode, Vance reads Dr. Cranston's report on the team - she makes it clear that they are a psychological disaster, but their selfless devotion toward each other and the job is why they succeed.

"The idea was to go back over eight seasons of television and pull bits and pieces", and "one of the trick with this episode was to find moments and opportunities for these sort of flashes to happen".

For Mark Harmon, "this is [his] favourite kind of episode [because] it's everybody's story at the same time, and it all pushes all, including the crew, to do special things".

[2] Inspired by an old M*A*S*H episode where the unit talks to a psychiatrist "to make sure they all haven't lost their minds", Glasberg got the idea of introducing Dr. Cranston as "an interesting approach on the show".