NCIS Season 7 Episode 22 Recap – With NCIS SE 0702, entitled, Borderland, it starts becoming apparent that by the season finale, truths will be revealed, things will get ugly and things are going to change.

The victim is found in the trunk of a car that was being demolished. When they pull him out of the trunk, they realize his feet have been severed.

Identified as Marine Corporal Ray Collins, he recently served in Afghanistan until he was court marshaled for larceny, drug dealing and assault.

The tissue from the killer reveals that he was not in military. They tracked his whereabouts from GPS runner’s watch that logs your both time and place. Gibbs gives Abby a mini pow – Abby questions it and is told that was all they had. She sees this as a bad omen. Gibbs tell her not to worry because he has always had her back and always will… we see this as a bad omen

In the lab, we find out that the victim bled to death. Ducky says that the decapitation of the feet was the cause but added that the victim was probably unconscious. He also suffered a mandibular fracture consistent with a blow by a wrench or piece of pipe. The victim also has a reversed “666 – sign of the devil” welt behind his ear and Ducky has no idea how it got there.

Abby goes up to the director’s office talks with his Admin. She thinks she’s in trouble but the Admin tells her Alejandro Rivera from the Mexican Justice department wants her to speak at a symposium. Abby is psyched but asks that McGee not be her escort because he’s been acting “squirrely” and so who else shows up at the Director’s request? Yep… and Abby’s eyes are rolling sideways.

Tony and Ziva find the a truck at the site of the victim’s GPS. Inside the truck, they find a bloody table and a bunch of woodworking tools and the missing feet plus more feet hanging like they’re on a drying rack. There is also evidence of sulfuric acid which means the rest of the bodies were dissolved. During the inspection, DiNozzo realizes that the tattoos around the ankles of the feet are all from motorcycle gangs.

Abby is thrilled to see Alejandro again but McGee is not happy with the attention Alejandro is paying to her. He is also not happy that there is only one bed left for the two of them.

This is when we find out that McGee can’t work out the logistics of clean water since he forgets about it on his toothbrush, eats unpasteurized yogurt, and that (oh, btw,) he and Abby once shared a bed together (“technically, it was a coffin”).
We also find out that while Ziva and Tony were in Paris, Ziva told Abby she took the couch but Tony told Timothy that he was the one that took the couch.

The case that was given to Abby for her class is that of a gangland hit of a drug trafficker by the name of Pedro Hernandez. Abby says there is little evidence and they go into the field.

DiNozzo and Ziva walk into a chick biker bar where Tony is promptly ignored like his online chat attempts. The tough woman behind the bar with the snake tattoos (Claudia Black! Rejoice Farscape and Stargate SG-1 fans!) asks them to leave.

She follows them out and then introduces herself as Velvet Road and explains that her actions and attitude were for her customers. She goes on to say Collins was sleeping with everyone and thinks a jealous biker boyfriend might have done it.

A review of the evidence reveals inconsistencies in the police report. The report said that Pedro Hernandez was shot at point-blank range. Abby sees immediately this is not the case. They also almost immediately see that there are some people with guns that don’t seem to be too happy with their presence.

The leader is a woman who tells them to line up. They students start crying and praying but McGee shows her his ID, offering himself for the students.

She’s impressed with McGee’s courage and tells them that she Paola Reinosa. The Reinosa drug cartel is the “family business.”

Abby explains why they’re there. Paola interrupts Abby, saying that Pedro was killed by a sniper on a ridge 1,000 meters away. She says the sniper left a message, and takes out the bullet casing she wears around her neck. She gives the casing to Abby and tells her she hopes she gets more use out it.

Abby realizes that two of Pedro Hernandez’s victims were the wife and daughter of her beloved Jethro Gibbs. She doesn’t tell anyone what she’s found but asks Alejandro exhume the body of Hernandez and have it shipped back to Ducky for analysis, claiming she’s the only one she can trust. Alejandro agrees.

Back at HQ, further investigation by Tony and Ziva reach the same conclusion – that Corporal Collins was actually the serial killer, but they don’t yet know who killed him. We do know that he used salt to preserve the feet and snake venom to poison his victims.

It suddenly becomes apparent that the feet-less victims were drug dealers and that it was actually a drug cartel that ordered the hits.

Gibbs realizes during Ducky’s exam of Abby’s victim who and what he’s dealing with and that Abby knows the truth.

Gibbs speaks to Velvet in the interrogation room. She’s wearing a “666″ ring that matches the mark found on Collins’ head. He tells her about the DNA under Collins’ fingernails.

She says Collins tried to poison her with snake venom, but since she’s been bitten by her own pythons and cobras a few times, she’s immune to their venom. She said that she came home two nights ago and had a drink then woke up in the truck the next day with Collins. She admits that whacked him with a pipe but also said that she didn’t mean to kill him. She didn’t think anyone would buy a self-defense alibi from her because he was killing her dealers. She also mentions that she thinks it’s Reinosa cartel that hired Collins to kill her dealers.

Abby goes to see Gibbs. She is having trouble seeing the man she’s looked up to for so many years as the man who could kill in cold blood.

Confronting Gibbs in his basement and telling her what she’s found what she doesn’t want to know, she tells him that she didn’t come across this case by accident. Gibbs says, “Rule number forty.” Abby replies, “If it seems like someone is out to get you, they are.”

She asks him if he understands the situation she’s in and the choice she has to make. He says he does. She wants him to tell her she’s wrong or made a mistake with her ID. But he says he can’t.

She then asks him to to tell her how much he loves her and how she’s like a daughter to him.

“Will that help?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “What I really need to know, Gibbs, is if you’re gonna love me, no matter what.”

She doesn’t get an answer.