NCIS Recap 10/10/17: Season 15 Episode 3 “Exit Strategy”

Tonight on CBS NCIS returns with an all new Tuesday, October 10, 2017, season 15 episode 3 called, “Exit Strategy” and we have your weekly NCIS recap below. On tonight’s NCIS season 15 episode 3, as per the CBS synopsis, “Torres’ partner mysteriously vanishes during a stakeout with Metro P.D. The investigation uncovers new evidence from a decade-old murder case. Meanwhile, Ducky’s friend, Cadence Darwin, presents him with a new opportunity during his guest lecture series..”

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Torres had been teamed up with Metro Detective on tonight’s all new episode and together they were supposed to catch a felon however his partner mysteriously disappeared right before the bust and so Torres had thought his partner was mad at him. He had snapped at Metro Detective Miles Higgins because the other man had talked all night and into the morning. But Torres had ultimately realized that something was wrong when Higgins never showed after back-up arrived. So Torres called in his own team and Metro Police sent in Detective Sergeant Danny Sportelli to find out what happened to Higgins.

Higgins had come across a tech nerd and he had bothered Torres with how much he liked to talk. However, the people that knew Higgins well had said he wouldn’t have left his post voluntarily and so Sportelli had wanted to treat the case as an abduction. He said that someone must have taken Higgins after Torres had abandoned his partner. So Torres had had a few things to say about that yet McGee had found one of Higgins’s tech toys that he said might help things. It had been a pen/recording device and it had recorded Higgins’s last moments. He had been in the car when a woman showed up and he had left with her.

So Sportelli had wanted to know who the woman was because everyone started to suspect Higgins had abandoned his post for a booty call. Yet, Gibbs had seen that the woman touched something with her bare hands and so NCIS ran her prints. Her name was Michelle Lane and she was once a detective with Metro Police, but she was allegedly killed on the job ten years and so Sportelli had wanted how she came to be alive. She had apparently been working a case on a gunrunner when the boat she was on had blown up and two million dollars in bearer bonds had disappeared at the same she allegedly was murdered. And so Metro Police and the Director of NCIS talked.

Both believed that the case should continue to be a joint venture and so Sportelli was temporarily assigned to the team. But the team still didn’t know where to start. There had been nothing on Higgins’s phone and he hadn’t gone back to his apartment. So they were at their wits’ end when finally a report came in on Higgins being seen with Michelle driving in one direction and so they tapped into every came hoping to spot the pair though it turns out they hadn’t need to do that what with Higgins using his own wifi. The wifi signal had come from a garage and so the guys followed it right back to Higgins’s body.

Higgins had been killed with a single gunshot to the neck however no one could tell if Michelle did the deed or if it had been Sitano. Benjamin Sitano had been the gunrunner Michelle was investigating and, while he had passed away, his son Benny Jr. had inherited the criminal empire. Though the thing about Sitano Jr. was that he wanted to make his business legitimate. He runs his own company now and has been trying to distance himself from his father’s legacy. So Sitano didn’t seem like the type to go after Michelle and so it had more looked like Michelle was going after him. She had used Higgins’s laptop to find Sitano’s location and so NCIS immediately gone to warn him because Michelle posed as a risk.

Only Sitano had remembered Michelle. He told NCIS that he remembered her as someone that used to work for his father and that she had no reason to want to hurt him. However, Sitano clammed pretty quick when they showed him a photo of Higgins’s body. He said that he shouldn’t answer anymore questions without his lawyer and had shut down the interview right then. So Gibbs and Bishop could have pushed harder, but they didn’t have too because Michelle later showed up in the building. She had gone to see Sitano and instead had run into NCIS who naturally had a lot of questions for her.

But Gibbs never filled in Metro. He hadn’t told them about the laptop, talking to Sitano, or that they had caught Michelle. So NCIS used the time they had to grill Michell. They wanted to know what happened to the bearer bonds and why she ran away yet her excuses had been lame at best. She said she thought the bomb had been for her at first and that she ran because she found out she was pregnant while on the job. And so when she was asked about Higgins, she finally started to come clean. She said that someone had found her in her new life and had demanded she turn over the two million dollar bearer bonds. Except she didn’t have them!

Michelle revealed that she never had them and that’s why she had gone to Higgins because she needed his help to protect her family. Yet, her son had called her during custody and she had been allowed to answer it only it hadn’t been her son. Her son had gotten kidnapped and the kidnapper was demanding she hand over the money. So Michelle desperately asked NCIS to help and that time she had been truthful about why she ran away. She didn’t runaway because of the money, she ran because Benny Sitano Jr was her son’s father and people on the job would have counted back nine months. And so that made Sitano the best suspect for the kidnapping.

Sitano had been brought in and questioned about his son, but he already knew about Landon. He had hired a private detective to find Michelle when a body was never found and he had seen her with a baby and a new man in her life. Though Sitano hadn’t been angry. He said that he had seen an opportunity for his son to have a normal life and not have to live under the Sitano name. So he let them go and he hasn’t tried to make contact in the nine years since he’s known. And so Sitano had tried to tell they had the wrong guy. NCIS just hadn’t believed him and they had allowed Michelle to get arrested.

Michelle had broken several law after she ran away and so Sportelli had said it was his duty to arrest her. But he had also been angry about being left out for so long. He told Gibbs that he should have been notified the second they found Michelle and Gibbs had fobbed him off. He hadn’t wanted to share his investigation with an outsider and he hadn’t wanted to turn over Michelle either. So he did what he had to do because he thought that was best and Bishop had continued looking into the disappearance of Michelle’s son. She had found out that Sitano’s body had recently received a pay increase and so she had gone to speak to him with Torres however Omar Nitro knew what they were up to.

He came right out and said he hadn’t taken the kid. He had been former cop with Metro Police and he had only left his job because he had been railroaded out by crooked cops. Like Sportelli! So Bishop and Torres had reported what he said and they tried to find Sportelli yet Sportelli hadn’t gone to booking with Michelle and the two had left hours ago. And so the team started to look into Sportelli and they found out why he had gone after Michelle. He had opened up a bar that had gone bankrupt and had lost his 401K while doing so. However, Sportelli had still been paying for the rent on that bar and so the team figured out he would hide there with Michelle.

Michelle for her part had tried giving Sportelli a fake account number because he wouldn’t believe her when he said that she didn’t have the bonds. Yet, NCIS later showed up just in time to save her and her son. So the two got away while they handled Sportelli. Sportelli had been a crooked cop for years and he was finally taken down on tonight’s episode, but surprisingly what he did had a happy ending. Michelle was found and she had ultimately introduced her son to Sitano because she knew now that Sitano would have Landon’s best interest at heart.

THE END!