"Devil's Triad" is the tenth episode of the eleventh season of the American

police procedural The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on eithe ...

drama ''

NCIS NCIS or N.C.I.S. may refer to: Law enforcement * National Criminal Intelligence Service, the predecessor to the Serious Organised Crime Agency of the United Kingdom * Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a United States law enforcement and intelli ...

'', and the 244th episode overall. It originally aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

in the United States on December 10, 2013. The episode is written by Steven D. Binder and directed by Arvin Brown, and was seen by 19.30 million viewers.

Plot

The team investigate the death of a Marine who was reportedly shot by a clown. A number on a cellphone found on the Marine is traced to a hotel room where Gibbs and Tony accidentally chance upon Fornell and his and Gibbs' ex-wife

Diane Sterling ''NCIS'' is an American police procedural television series, revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which investigates crimes involving the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The series was c ...

. The cellphone belongs to an Eddie Macklin but the team keep hitting dead ends with the evidence. However, the case takes an unexpected turn when Gibbs and Fornell discover that "Eddie Macklin" is the alias of

Secret Service A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...

Special Agent Edward McKenzie and that NCIS had stumbled on a highly classified six-month-long undercover operation. Fornell and Diane's daughter

Emily Emily may refer to: * Emily (given name), including a list of people with the name Music * Emily (1964 song), "Emily" (1964 song), title song by Johnny Mandel and Johnny Mercer to the film ''The Americanization of Emily'' * Emily (Dave Koz son ...

has a significant part in the plot of this episode.

Production

"Devil's Triad" is written by Steven D. Binder and directed by Arvin Brown. The episode is the third "incarnation of the relationship between Gibbs and Fornell and their ex-wife". The other two are "

Devil's Triangle The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under myster ...

" and "

Devil's Trifecta "Devil's Triangle" is the ninth episode of the tenth season of the American police procedural drama ''NCIS'', and the 219th episode overall. It originally aired on CBS in the United States on December 11, 2012. The episode is written by Steven ...

" from the ninth and tenth seasons. "The humor that exists when these characters get together is just a blast", executive producer Gary Glasberg said about the return of Melinda McGraw's character in an interview with ''TV Line'' in November 2013. McGraw's return as Diane Sterling was announced on November 1, 2013.

Reception

"Devil's Triad" was seen by 19.30 million live viewers at its December 10, 2013 broadcast, with a 2.9/8 share among adults aged 18 to 49. A rating point represents one percent of the total number of television sets in American households, and a share means the percentage of television sets in use tuned to the program. In total viewers, "Devil's Triad" was the highest rated show on the night it aired. Douglas Wolfe from ''TV Fanatic'' gave the episode 4.2/5 and stated that "The idea of murderous clowns has got to be everyone's favorite nightmare.

he episode He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

opened with one such clown putting a bullet into a Marine. Then things took a turn for the worse."

References

{{NCIS episodes 2013 American television episodes NCIS (season 11) episodes