In general, "NCIS" is not the kind of show that carries plot lines over from week to week.
The series is a crime procedural and, as such, there's typically a new case each week that
the team has to solve. While stories may not carry over through successive episodes, certain
character details do remain constant. We're not suddenly going to see Special Agent Leroy Jethro
Gibbs start giving soliloquies any time soon. The leader and former Marine gunnery sergeant is going
to remain a man of few words and let his piercing gaze do most of the talking; it's his personality,
as shaped through the life he's lived before and during his time on the Major Case Response Team.
These details are subtle reminders of how the show's central players have been changed by the
things they've gone through and they reinforce the idea that, while the team is always taking
new cases, the characters don't forget all the things they've been through together.
The same can be said for everyone's favorite will-she-return-or-not character, Ziva David,
played by Cote de Pablo. Her prior life and her time alongside the "NCIS" team has shaped her
personality. In fact, one case in particular had a noticeable impact on her wardrobe.
The case in question was investigated in the 16th episode of "NCIS" Season 4,
entitled "Dead Man Walking." This "NCIS" episode featured a Navy lieutenant named
Roy Sanders who shows up in the MCRT bullpen and isn't looking too good.
He's coming to the team with a simple request: to solve a murder. His own murder, in fact.
No, he's not a ghost visiting them from beyond the grave; as he demonstrates by removing a clump
of hair, Roy has realized he's been poisoned with radiation and will meet an untimely end.
It turns out he works at the International Atomic Energy Agency,
but doesn't believe his sickness is mere occupational hazard.
The team manages to suss out how Roy's been poisoned: Abby isolates radioactive ash from
a shooting range and Ducky posits that the thallium has been laced into Roy's cigars,
but the team can't seem to figure out a motive. That is, until Gibbs puts together that Roy is due
to go to Uzbekistan to inspect a nuclear reactor. Given that he'd made a similar trip six times
previously, it's likely that he would have noticed the changes that have been made recently, changes
that appear to be geared toward re-establishing a Soviet-era weapons program at the site. All
it takes is a $50,000 bribe to IAEA admin Holly Stegman for her to poison Roy. Sadly, her goal was
simply to prevent him from making the inspection trip and she's dismayed to learn he's dying.
Roy Sanders and Ziva David form a close bond over the course of the episode,
in part because Ziva actually recognizes him, but can't figure out why at first.
Tony DiNozzo wonders if it could be from her past with Mossad. Eventually, she realizes that she'd
seen him running and the two bond over having similar fathers and other life experiences.
"I pass you every morning! You're going east, I'm going west. Don't you recognize me?"
The NCIS team is ultimately able to solve Roy's murder, but he eventually succumbs to the thallium
poisoning he already knew would kill him. The Navy lieutenant doesn't survive the episode,
but before he dies, the bond he forms with Ziva clearly makes a lasting impression on her, one
that would carry over into subsequent episodes. After Roy's death in "Dead Man Walking," Ziva is
seen wearing an orange beanie. Some fans believe that it's actually Roy's old running attire.
"You're the one who wears the fluorescent orange watch cap!"
It's a devastating episode, in part because Roy had quickly established himself as a likable
character and as someone with whom Ziva had a real connection. The fact that Ziva seems
to wear his beanie following his death speaks to that connection and to the fact that although the
NCIS team has moved on to other cases, the show's characters still remember the cases
that had the biggest impact on them. That orange beanie became a regular part of Ziva's identity,
and although it's a subtle detail, it's one that fans on Reddit noticed and appreciated
for what it represented. Every "NCIS" character develops their own history as
a result of the cases the team takes on, even if they're not always explicitly acknowledged.
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