Two-Faced

Apart from all the other stuff In the episode, Vance tells Gibbs and Barrett to go off, sort it out together and give him a solution. So following my review of the previous episode, how does this affect our approach to the general situation?

Gibbs's superior says that Barrett is in charge of the case. He does not imply it or suggest it; he gives it as an order. It's also appalling bad tactics to not show a united front to a suspect, unless of course it's not a reality but a tactic in itself.

Gibbs would not only be bounced off the case, he would likely be chucked out of NCIS!

To steal a line from a friend about a different show, I am willing to suspend disbelief a little in fiction, but not throttle it by the neck until dead. After his behavior in the interview room, Gibbs would be out of the investigation regardless of who was right or wrong about the case itself, and that would be only the start of his punishment. Nothing in this episode involving Gibbs would have happened after the interview; he would have been home working on his boat. He gave Barrett the rope to achieve that.

The writers could have served their purpose better by having Gibbs and Barrett argue and jockey for position constantly outside the interview room instead. For instance, the scene in Abby's lab works fine.

I know that reality standards are lower in television than in most fiction, but there is a line and the writers of this episode charged across it.