{ NCIS, 5x16, Recoil; spoilers through all of S5. }

[delga]

A lot of this is going to link back to 'pivotal' episodes through all four seasons (Ari arc; Ziva's episodes; La Grenouille). A lot is also going to key into I am not a blind man which was my femgen entry about a year ago. I've been thinking about Ziva a lot since I went back and watched all of season 3 and the way that all leads up to Recoil (and eventually to Judgement Day) is some fairly impressive arc-work. Unfortunately, I think a lot of it is unintentional but hey, that's what negative space is all about. Fill in the gaps, everyone, that's what fandom does.

Judgement Day is going to get a post all of its own because the parallels there are too huge for this one.

Season 5 is, to an extent, a season of resolution. The questions you ask in Recoil are the questions every one should be asking: who is Ziva? Who has she become? And implicitly: who is Tony? Who is Jethro? What did season 4 do to these characters that made them manifest in this way in season 5? To some extent this really gets tied up in Judgement Day but Ziva's arc hits its milestone in Recoil, without a doubt.

Things that I am taking as given: Ziva was not out of character, she was suffering PTSD, and understandably so (more on this momentarily; it's important both to this episode and to her characterisation on the whole); Jethro was not out of character (because post-Hiatus Jethro is NOT the Jethro Gibbs who was hell bent on killing Ari Haswari); Tony was not out of character (though I was initially very much WTF, I since made some realisations, and then I watched Judgement Day which made his characterisation in THIS episode make so much more sense). Things I still don't understand: the resolution of the crime. But, hey, I'm not here to talk about that.

Right, Ziva's PTSD. Ziva is a trained assassin. Ziva, ostensibly, should not be fazed by having to kill someone. Sometimes the act is necessary - Jethro has taught us this. Ziva herself has taught us this in extremis, and she reiterates the sentiment during the episode. ('It is what it is'.) So why is this instance in particular such a big deal? (1) Ziva may be an assassin, but that identity is very much a part of pre-Kill Ari Ziva. Jethro has been quietly teaching her - all the way through season 3, culminating in that horrible ordeal in Jeopardy - that yes, killing can be necessary, but the parameters that define 'necessary' are very precise when you're around him. So her way of thinking about assassination have definitely changed over the course of her being part of NCIS. They have to have changed, and she herself says during Jeopardy that whereas a year ago (so, around SWAK) she would have killed him without a thought, she isn't like that anymore. Killing someone is always a grave act. It is never something frivolous, never something that Ziva would take lightly. (2) She did the thing Jethro later warns her not to do: she gets a scent of fear. She gets backed into a corner and she almost dies. The near-death experience is what triggers the PTSD. It is compounded by... (3) the fact that she has NO WEAPON. No gun, no knife, nothing. Ziva is essentially naked. She's in a corner, she has no escape route, and she has no weapon and she lets in her fear. Bang. No amount of self-defense training is going to get past the fact that in that moment she makes a probie mistake and gets struck. She should have moved earlier, she says. Maybe, maybe not. But for me, it's that fear that triggers her episode. Because it's that fear that makes her forget that her body is a weapon, too.

[Enter speculation.] Thinking for a moment about where I was going with I am not a blind man - to me, this makes perfect sense. If Ziva believes in an eye for an eye (which, to my mind... look, she and Jethro share a certain code of ethics which looks like it's bending the rules but is actually basically: an eye for an eye, and you better fucking believe it) then there's no way that she's not waiting for the retribution that follows Ari's death. As someone whose job at times involves point-blank death, there's no way that she hasn't at one time or another considered the karmic return. No way. Even if she talks about compartmentalising there is at least one moment where she says to herself, fuck, it could be me. The trick, and she knows this, the trick is to tuck it away, to not let it see the light of day. The trick is to do something different with the fear (and isn't this exactly what Jethro tells Jimmy in the next episode? That the fear is always there, it's what you do with it that counts).

I've said it before, I'll say it many more times, I'm sure, but Ziva's arc is always about how she's adapting to the now in comparison to the then. Ari's death is a turning point in the show's narrative arc because it marks the end of the Kate-based arc (which is an intimate affair because Kate, to some extent, is the viewer's way in. It's a cliché, but that's how it goes), and it also marks a point in Jethro's arc (which I still maintain is separate from Kate. It begins with the head fugue in Enigma which is one episode before the Ari arc begins in Bete Noir). Kate's death starts the second arc of Jethro's story which is necessarily split into two by Hiatus. But. Whilst Kate and Jethro's stories are separate (they bissect, but they begin and end in different places), Jethro's and Ziva's stories are linked for the whole of season 3. Ziva kills Ari; Jethro takes the fall for that. He brings Ziva on board because in killing Ari, Ziva has severed her ties to home. But whilst Jethro respects Ziva, I am going to suggest that he doesn't completely trust her until Hiatus. He holds her closeness to Ari over her head in a very quiet understated way. She's efficient, yes, but she killed her own brother. It's a strength and a weakness: she did it for him, but if she can kill her brother, then she's ruthless. Compare Jeopardy to Recoil. Both take place just before important finale episodes, both concern Ziva's characterisation. In Jeopardy it's never proven whether Ziva is to blame for the guy's death or not; Jethro is not convinced that she wasn't to blame. Jethro still does not trust her. Then boom, Hiatus, in which Ziva cannot confront a Jethro who does not know her, who does not recognise her. Why? Because Jethro bore witness to a defining moment in Ziva's life, and if he can't remember, then there is no record and no-one to say, it's okay, you did what needed to be done. I love that scene in Recoil, the one that got photographed for the promos (inflightdata posted it here) where Jethro has Ziva's skull grasped in his hand, trying to assess the damage done. It's such a throwback for me to the end of Hiatus where Ziva grabs Jethro's head and forces him to look at her, to acknowledge her. (That's what I am not a blind man was about. Haha, when I sent it to my beta [hi, twincy!], it still didn't have a real ending, or rather, it ended with Ziva rewatching the animation that Abby has constructed. And then I added that final line, and suddenly the whole fic made sense to me. So that fic is the moment before Ziva decides to intervene, decides to go and see Gibbs. Because there just isn't any time left.) I'm pleased that it was Ziva who shook him from the fugue (not completely - I still think that as Jethro heads up to MTAC he actually gets Tim and Tony mixed up) because to my mind, Jethro owes Ziva and he never acknowledges his debt properly until Hiatus. (Also: Ziva knows abotu Shannon and Kelly; she knows before everybody else, way back in Kill Ari, and she is so keyed in to that, and Jethro's issues with women.) And then, of course, there is Shalom, and Ziva calls in that favour. But really? It's not payment. The only reciprocation Jethro can give Ziva is to continually believe in her. Because there is nothing else that Jethro can sacrifice for her (and if there is, then that relationship, that co-dependency is broken). [Ugh, I have talked about how Shalom doesn't add up in terms of reciprocation somewhere before but now I can't find the damn post here.]

This is something I was thinking about in the S4-S5 hiatus; where can Ziva go now? For a while there it looked like they were pushing a relationship with Tony which, I'm not up for that, but that actually played out really well. And if there is only one Ziva episode in season 5 (which, yes; I don't include Tribes because there's something very surface-value about that episode) it's got to be Recoil. What I love, though, is that Recoil comes after Internal Affairs where Ziva, at the very end, makes what I see as a pivotal decision. "Be a man," she says to DiNozzo, "tell her what she needs to hear". And at that point, where she could have been cloying and pressing and patronising, Ziva puts asides her own concerns and does right by Tony. And Tony, after Internal Affairs and the whole of the Grenouille arc (which is more accurately defined, I feel, as a movement in Jenny's narrative arc to which Jethro is necessarily secondary because of Hiatus) is possibly still smarting from that in Recoil. Overwhelmingly, my reaction to him in that episode was irritation. Why are you being such an asshole? Except, I was blind-siding myself. Tony's actions are borne out by his dialogue all the way through the episode. When he tries to tousle Ziva's hair and she (marvellously; that scene made me laugh inappropriately until I saw her face and the fugue she was in) smacks him down he's trying to reach out, and she is quite literally pushing him away. He goes on the offensive because Ziva shuts him down. To wit, he does exactly what Ziva would have done had she the means to do so whilst Tony was with Jeanne. Judgement Day tells us that Tony has spent season 5 beating himself up over Jeanne and the op, and that to an extent, his resentment squares off at Jenny. So when Jenny dies, Tony's guilt doubles: he wasn't there, he failed again, it was his fault because he couldn't get over his emotional distance from Jenny. (I should probably point out that it took me ages to figure out that Jeanne was part of an op. I fail at observation when it comes to Tony.) He does owe Ziva an apology and something gets fixed before Jimmy Palmer's episode (Face-off? About Face? Something like that) because they're jovial in that one.

I fail at doing this in a way that make sense, so please, have some comments I made to sepiaxtoned yesterday:

PTSD happens to anyone human. If you think about what happened to her and combine it with the fact that it's not like she's living in a place where that killer mentality is actively condoned... I mean, Jethro says, it's necessary, and he believes in necessary death. But to Ziva it's like it was too close. She should have been faster. That's where her shock comes from. And then Tony is making her doubt her judgement re: Locke, and it's messing with her head. (God, I love that scene in the morgue where Jethro's all 'is that what this is all about? You're questioning your judgement?' because you KNOW he'd never brook that shit with Kate (because it would be overly self-involved guilt) but seeing it in Ziva is worrying. That something so real to her can shake her is worrying for him. And that has to stretch back not only to her capability in working for NCIS but all the way back to Ari. Because if she starts to judge all her actions, to doubt them, then she starts to doubt the foundation on which her relationship with Jethro is founded.)

And also:

Tony, what. the. fuck. I mean, I sort of get it? Ziva stepped up at the end of the previous episode - be a man. And there's got to be some resentment there. But on the other hand: what the fuck is going on there? That relationship has been through the wringer recently. I can't tell if he couldn't handle Ziva's swing in personality, or if he was actively annoyed with her. (He's so much more interesting when he's being an ass.)

[...]

I feel like Ziva stepped up and did the right thing at the end of the Grenouille episode - she didn't patronise him, she laid out the facts. He needed to tell Jeanne what Jeanne needed to hear. Be a man. Ziva was the straight man at the end of the episode, instead of being clingy and obsessive as she once was prone. Because of course, for Ziva, the decision here is a very different one: what is best for Tony? (She made the right move; in my mind, there's no denying that.)

But Tony's resentment plays out like a harsher version of Ziva's poorly-masked concern/envy. At one point Tony seems to make the decision that if Ziva can't take his haphazard approach at sympathy, then he's got to play hardball. And in a way, that too is probably the best he could do because open sympathy from him would be patronising. She wouldn't take it, and she wouldn't respect it. As it is, the stuff with Locke is just poorly timed. Tony doesn't understand - and Ziva doesn't communicate to him - that Ziva is doubting herself. So when Tony is trying to snap his fingers in front of her face, trying to shake her out of her fugue (which is exactly what he confesses to doing early in the episode), what Ziva hears is 'you were wrong, you are still wrong'. The message is garbled. (And why is the message garbled? Because these are two people who still fail to speak the same language. They can do levity like nobody's business because levity is a lie, levity is a cover, and they are people who cover. But they cannot do truth because the truth is too close to home.)

Obviously I have changed my mind a little about the above, you know, having now seen Judgement Day and the way that Tony is always beating himself up (I mean, I knew that anyway, but it's more explicit now) but there is still an edge there, isn't there? There's still that space between Ziva and Kate, and Ziva and Jeanne. (That Ziva gives Cassidy her mercy in Grace Period is beautiful, all things considered.) So there's a relationship that wears different faces in different lights.

--

(In addendum: you cannot say that Ziva replaces Kate. You cannot say that one is precisely the other, nor can you say that they are completely different. The symbiosis of that implied relationship is so vital. Ziva doesn't mark a brand new narrative arc; she's there all the way through the Ari arc. She's there right at its end. Ziva is what makes the narrative cohere.)

--

Shallow observation, something which I am making more of than can actually be attained from the screen: Jethro's voice when he sees Ziva on the floor post-shooting. (Ziva on the floor; Kate on the floor. He never has to see Jenny that way, which is a small blessing.)

No, Jethro wouldn't have taken Ziva's reaction from Kate. Because although he was softer with Kate in many ways (because of her more blatant femininity - he and Ducky say it in Kill Ari - women are different to them, always, and I can deal with that misogyny because it's acknowledged, not denied and covered up as though it never existed) he was also harder with her emotional core. And also, say it with me, pre-Hiatus Jethro is a different man. The memory issues bring down all of Jethro's emotional walls and when Ziva takes his face in her hands, when she forces him to get back to the here and the now, in some ways, Jethro leaves a lot of those ghosts behind. I mean, a lot of that work happens whilst he's in Mexico; the healing takes place in a space that is almost outside of time. He's with Mike because that's where his head is at but he has to come away from Mexico because he has to come back to time. But there are other reasons why it's okay for Jethro to show Ziva some kindness. For one: Ziva almost never needs it. Different strokes for different folks. Jethro is not incapable of a lighter hand. Doesn't anyone remember Probie? Doesn't anyone remember Dead Man Walking? Even when he won't broker Kate, it's from a gentle place. He was different with Kate because she was not Ziva. He is different with Ziva because she needs it. And he strong-arms her, too. Because the moment you do, it won't be 'almost'. That's the surface of it.

Underneath-- underneath, if Ziva is doubting her ability not only is she no longer an asset to the team, but she is doubting the one act that binds her to Jethro: Ari's death. (And for anyone who says she showed more grief over this killing than over her assassination of Ari, I say: the woman weeped over Ari's body; she was in Tel Aviv for a fortnight where there's no way any viewer could have seen her mourning; and her entire confrontation with Jethro in Hiatus is all about her grief, her guilt and her love for her brother and her father). If she doubts Ari's death, then to some extent, Ziva becomes dangerous. Because Ari's death is a secret (parallels to Judgement Day!) and if Jethro's forgetting of the act wounds Ziva, then Ziva's inability to deal with it wounds Jethro. Ziva and Jethro carry one anothers secrets. Jethro spells it out to Ziva so clearly: the death was necessary. You know it was necessary. You know how to define the parameters. (He's saying I trust you so loudly and so clearly, and Ziva, who is always waiting, who needs that reassurance from this man who is her equal and also her other father [it's complex; I don't deny that], Ziva closes her ears to it. Jethro says, trust yourself, because I do, and Ziva just pushes at the open wound. God. It should not be a surprise that she full-on made me cry when I was rewatching this. That moment when she's re-enacting the scene with Locke at her back, that moment when she says there was nowhere left to go, when she is trapped by those bars - that's the moment Death looks Ziva in the face and laughs. That's the moment when Death opens his eyes to her. In I am not a dead man, Ziva is always running from Death, whether she knows it or not, and for me, because it is my fanon, Recoil slots neatly into the space that comes after that fic because in the fic Ziva says she is ready for Death, she will not be blind to it, and here she so very nearly is. It takes her by surprise. [It must be difficult for an assassin, I think. It must be difficult to say, I know death is here, at my shoulder. It must be hard to then turn and be surprised by it. To be so intimate and yet to know nothing at all.]) That Jethro says I don't need to see you here; how much of that is an admonishment? She reads that wrong. Jethro is saying, you did good, take in the air, and all Ziva is hearing is, you fucked up, you fucked up, get out of my sight.

--

Oh god, oh god. What comes next? (You know, I really need to write that Ziva and Jenny backstory already because the show doesn't do that relationship justice.) (Also: my emotional investment is really pretty excessive.)