Dead Man Walking (NCIS)

“Dead Man Walking”
NCIS episode
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 16
Written by	Nell Scovell
Directed by	Colin Bucksey
Guest stars	Brian Dietzen as Jimmy Palmer Liza Lapira as Michelle Lee Matthew Marsden as Lt. Roy Sanders Marc Vann as Mark Sadowski Kate Norby as Diane Russio Diane Delano as Dee Dee Chesney
Production no.	4x16
Original airdate	February 20, 2007
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Friends and Lovers" "Skeletons"
Episode chronology

"Dead Man Walking" is the 86^th episode of the drama television series NCIS. This storyline bears similarities to the case of Russian dissident and writer, Alexander Litvinenko who suddenly fell ill in November 2006 and died three weeks later, a rare victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning under highly suspicious circumstances. Additionally, as DiNozzo states, the plot of the poisoned man reporting his own murder is similar to that of the 1950 film D.O.A.

Plot

Tony and Ziva speculate on how much McGee's new leather jacket must have cost him ($2000, another reference that his writing earns him good money) when he enters, escorting a man who looks very sick. The man identifies himself as Lt. Sanders working for the IAEA and asks Gibbs to investigate a murder, his own. Apparently he has been poisoned by radiation poisoning, which Ducky is trying to find out while Ziva tries to place him, being sure she met him before. McGee in the same time has his clothes checked because Sanders coughed on him, even his new expensive Armani jacket which he fears Abby will stain. Ducky in the same time finds out that Sanders is poisoned with alpha emissions, as it turns out Thallium. Ziva escorts Sanders to the Navy hospital and Gibbs and Tony talk to his co-workers and check his work-place. In the hospital, Sanders is treated with "Prussian blue" and Ziva finds out where she knows him from: he usually runs in the morning and their paths cross every day. As Ziva learns more about him, she falls in love with him and is getting angry that she can't do anything to save him. She even expressed jealousy when one of his female co-workers who visited him touched him. The doctor then tells her that he is becoming sicker, not better, most likely because someone is still poisoning him. The team first think it's one of his co-workers and they bring him in for questioning, but this proves to be a dead end when the coworker becomes sick as well and security footage shows him being near Sanders when the latter smoked cigars who were filled with Thallium. The team then focuses on the other co-workers and about the changed plans for the next week. When they find out that a nuclear plant in Uzbekistan, scheduled for inspection, is apparently re-assembling engines for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, it becomes clear that someone tries to keep the IAEA from inspecting it. The team checks with Sanders on who knew about the inspection and they are able to arrest the co-worker who is responsible. When the episode ends, Ziva and Sanders are in the hospital garden, holding hands. The viewer is left wondering whether or not Sanders survives. Later episodes reveal that Sanders did not survive.