After an action-packed premiere, the NCIS: Sydney team worked on a slithery case in episode 2 of the new series.
In "Snakes in the Grass," two fishermen were enjoying a day on Cowan Creek when they got into a small dispute that resulted in some pushing. One ended up in the water when they noticed that there was also the dead body of Staff Sergeant Lee Mitchell floating nearby. NCIS agents and the AFP worked together to crack the case.
Read on to find out what happened on this episode of NCIS: Sydney.
Deadly snake bites
Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann), Jim "JD" Dempsey (Todd Lasance), DeShawn Jackson (Sean Sagar), Constable Evie Cooper (Tuuli Narkler) and Dr. Roy Penrose (William McInnes) headed to the scene of the crime. Penrose determined the victim had been dead for only a day or two. Dempsey observed that when someone is in a country setting, like where the creek was, they're usually planning to be there, however, the victim was not dressed for the location and had a calculator in his pocket. Meanwhile, Cooper played around with a new gait recognition device that identifies people just by their walk.
Back at headquarters, Penrose determined the victim died around 2 am, a strange time to be going for a swim. However, there was no presence of water in his lungs, which means he didn't drown, and he was dead before he was put in the water. Penrose then found multiple snake bites that were the likely cause of death.
Bluebird "Blue" Gleeson (Mavournee Hazel) found the victim tested positive for venom from an inland taipan (oxyuranus microlepidotus), an extremely venomous snake. This snake is typically a desert dweller, so it didn't make sense for it to be anywhere near the crime area. Cooper did some digging and found the only place in Sydney that held such a snake was recently broken into — and the snake had been stolen.
Stolen snakes and birds
At the Natureland Animal Clinic, Jackson and Cooper talked with an employee and found the robbers took various snakes, including the clinic's only inland taipan, and expensive birds. Meanwhile at the US Naval Supply Depot, Mackey and Dempsey got more information about Mitchell, who worked as a compliance officer. Everyone sang Mitchell's praises, which seemed off to Mackey "because if they're any good at what they do, no one likes a compliance officer." They also found a book about snakes in Mitchell's office and got an explanation on how shipments are weighed (once when it goes onto the truck and again before it comes off the truck) to ensure there aren't any discrepancies.
Gleeson discovered Mitchell passed away at the community hall in Terrey Hills, over an hour away from where the body was found. Jackson and Cooper headed there and found tracks and blood by a small door on the outside of the building. Jackson crawled inside with a flashlight and came across two things: Mitchell's cellphone and a snake. Inside the actual building, Cooper found a bird and some dead ones. At the scene, Mackey and Dempsey are called by Penrose, who let them know he was pulling wooden splinters out from under Mitchell's fingernails and to check if there were scratches on the crawl space door. There were, meaning Mitchell was trapped underneath the building with the venomous snake.
Whoever robbed Natureland also killed Mitchell. Cooper decided to use her gait recognition technology to work the case. While she didn't have a database of people's walks, she decided to build one by setting up a camera in the US Naval Supply Depot so she could match the walks of those in the depot to those caught on the security cameras at Natureland.
A witness is taken out
Exploring Mitchell's home, Mackey and Dempsey came across a hidden black board covered in white numbers and equations. They brought it to Gleeson, who realized she had missed something: Mitchell's phone kept receiving a notification every 30 seconds. She believed he was tracking someone's phone, Tommy (Gerick Leota), so Mackey and Dempsey followed him home. They believed Mitchell was onto Tommy and followed him to his stash house where he was killed. As the three of them wandered out on the balcony, Tommy broke down and called Mitchell "nosey" but he didn't deserve how he died and he told the others that. As they asked him who the others were, Tommy was suddenly shot in the head.
At headquarters, Cooper confirmed Tommy's walk matched one of the robbers in the security footage at Natureland. It was clear whoever else was involved didn't want Tommy to talk.
Gleeson worked on the numbers found in Mitchell's home when Penrose came in with a discovery: the bullet that killed Tommy came from a US special ops gun. However, if the bullet didn't kill him, he would have had a heart attack, as his arteries were clogged up. That's when Gleeson figured it out — the numbers were weights, and they all had something to do with Tommy’s weight (135 kilograms). She broke down the process: the goods come off of the ship and into the truck where they're weighed and the truck is locked. Instead of going straight to the US Naval Supply Depot, however, Tommy would stop by the community hall where he would offload exactly 135 kilograms of navy gear. But since that would make the truck underweight, when he would head to the depot he would sit in the truck to bring it back to the expected number.
An inside job
Determined to find the others involved in the Natureland heist, Mackey and Dempsey headed back to the depot, while Jackson returned to Natureland with Cooper. They passed an educational video talking about the animals, featuring the same woman they talked to the first time they went to the clinic. Cooper was locked in on the video and took out her gait recognition device.
At the depot, Mackey and Dempsey confirmed that the depot was missing 28 guns. Video footage showed Tommy was in fact sitting in the truck at the time the load was weighed. It's the floor manager's job to oversee the weighing of the trucks and — wait for it — his direct report was the very man the special agents were talking to. He tried to run, but Dempsey tackled him to the ground. He confessed the guns were at Natureland and a deal was going down at that moment.
Jackson and Cooper stumbled upon an open van just like the one the robbers used. Inside the van, there were long, thin tubes with animals inside. Just then, Cooper's device pinged that there was a positive gait match and Jackson was receiving a call from Mackey when he was suddenly faced with a gun to his head by the woman from the video.
She brought Jackson and Cooper into a room with three men, led by Frank (Dorian Nkonk), who were handling the guns. They taped them up and sat them on the ground, but Cooper revealed to Jackson she had a gun attached to her ankle they didn't take. The bad guys bring the van around the front and are getting ready to kill them. That's when the woman came back into the room — in handcuffs, because Mackey and Dempsey had arrived on the scene. Frank began shooting at them. Jackson grabbed Cooper's gun out from her ankle and shot at Frank with his hands taped behind his back. He missed, but he hit the glass enclosure holding the venomous snakes. The situation distracted Frank enough that Mackey and Dempsey were able to bust in with their guns on him. It was over.
New episodes of NCIS: Sydney air live on Tuesdays on CBS and stream on Paramount Plus.
