Continuing this week is the fourth season of the hit drama series following a team of special agents who investigate Navy and Marine Corps-related crimes. In this episode, the team attempts to catch an international arms dealer who is trying to buy a top-secret military defence system.

However, an unexpected hitch means that Ducky must go undercover to set the trap. Acting on a tip-off from Mossad, Gibbs and the team have detained a traitorous Israeli gunrunner named ‘Goliath’. Desperate to strike a deal, Goliath reveals that somebody in the arms-dealing community is offering to sell a copy of a US missile guidance system called Ares. If the system falls into enemy hands, it means US missiles could be diverted in mid-air to attack any given target.

The man behind the sale is Charles Harrow, a retired British encryption expert who originally worked on Ares. Harrow has been negotiating with different bidders via email, under the pretence of offering a Greek villa for sale. Ziva and McGee are sent to arrest him while Tony attempts to match the online bidders to known arms dealers. He soon discovers that one of Harrow’s bidders is a dealer called Trent Kort.

The revelation lands Tony in an awkward position, as he recognises Kort from one of the undercover missions he has conducted for Shepard. Tony is obliged to report the information to the director, who immediately takes an interest in Gibbs’s case. Shepard is forced to reveal that Tony has been working for her in secret ever since Gibbs’s temporary retirement. A guilty Tony apologises to Gibbs for deceiving him. “I’m sorry boss, I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time,” Tony says. “You taught me how to do this job and I never wanted to lie to you.”

When Shepard hears that Harrow is about to be detained, she surprises the agents by ordering them to back off. Unfortunately, Harrow realises he is being followed by Ziva and McGee and breaks into a run, only to collapse and die from a heart attack. A furious Shepard berates the agents for his death, but her motives remain mysterious. “Whatever she’s thinking about, it’s not Ares,” Gibbs says.

Shepard soon reveals her true objective when she tells Gibbs that she is trying to catch one of the arms dealers who bid for the Ares system: an elusive Frenchman named ‘la Grenouille’, or ‘the Frog’. Shepard appears to have a personal motive for wanting to catch la Grenouille – but with Harrow dead, the Ares deal is off.

However, McGee provides a crucial breakthrough when he discovers that Harrow hid the stolen Ares system in the shell of an old laptop. “The cunning old fox! He put a new computer in an old skin,” he says. The agents then stumble across a further lead when they learn that, before he died, Harrow arranged to deliver Ares to la Grenouille at an airstrip in Canada that night. The meeting should provide
the perfect opportunity to catch the Frog – if the agents can only find somebody to take Harrow’s place.

“All we need is a 68-year-old Englishman,” Shepard says, before all eyes turn to Ducky. The hapless pathologist is quickly dressed up as Harrow and given a crash course in undercover work. Shepard and the team watch from a safe distance as Ducky drives up to the drop-off point and prepares to hand over the Ares computer. “Six months of undercover work and it all comes down to Ducky!” Shepard says. While his henchmen check the machine, la Grenouille (Armand Assante, ‘The Mambo Kings’, ‘Hoffa’) emerges from the shadows to greet Ducky. But can the genteel Englishman keep his nerve and
lure the arms dealer into the trap?

Friday 7th March at 9:00pm on five