Trama

DiNozzo returns to the military academy he attended as a teenager after a murdered Marine and alumni of the school is found clutching the photo of a current student. Also, Bishop and her husband invite Gibbs and the team out for a special dinner.—Viktor Larsson

The body of a marine's been found so the team go to investigate. They discover he's wearing an unusual ring and Tony recognizes it as the ring of the military academy he went to. So Tony goes there and some old memories are stirred up. He meets the man who helped him. They learn that the marine was seeing another cadet who died. Tony learns from a guy who works at the academy who was there when Tony was that a group who weeds out the questionable cadets came down on her which is why she killed herself. So was the marine killed to keep him going after the group?—rcs0411@yahoo.com

DiNozzo returns to a military academy where a deceased marine was known to be missing and he discovers some more dark information about the military academy that involves the death of the deceased marine, to make matters worse, DiNozzo runs into his past coach he is the provost and that he lied to DiNozzo and Bishop when investigating the death of John Wallis and Christine Sanders where it was revealed from Travis Phelps that Honor Corps was responsible for the death of Christine Sanders. To make matters worse, Gerald Tanner was framed by the same killer of John Wallis, forcing Gerald Tanner to resign from the military school for the guilt of lying to Ellie Bishop and Tony DiNozzo about an incident involving the Honor Corps forcing the suicide of Christine Sanders.—Thomas Wiggin

Someone dumps the body of a young man in the woods. He's wearing a military academy ring.

In the office, Ellie and her husband, Jake Malloy come by and announce their plans to invite the team to dinner. Gibbs comes in to announce the dead body of the week and also that he's already accepted the dinner invite.

The victim is 19-year-old John Wallis. His cell phone is missing. Wallis was stabbed repeatedly. They notice the trail of blood leading into the woods. Tony ID's Wallis ring as belonging to the Remington Military Academy -- the last prep school Tony ever went to. Wallis is clutching a blood-soaked photo in his hand.

Tony was sent to Remington after six prep schools in four years.

Ellie and Tony find the burned tarp the body was dragged in and tire tracks.

Back in the morgue, Duckie tells Gibbs that Wallis was stabbed 20 times in the gut by a stab to his neck that killed him. He thinks it was a 6" knife. He has no defensive wounds.

In the office, it's victim rundown time: Wallis graduated at the top of his class and joined the Marine Corps. He was about to deploy when he got a call from the Military Academy, then emptied his bank account and disappeared.

Tony isn't thrilled when Gibbs sends him and Ellie to the school in Rhode Island.

McGee joins Abbie in the lab and accidentally mentions dinner with Ellie and her husband tomorrow. Abby isn't upset she wasn't invited; she and Burt do things with Jake and Ellie all the time.

On the road, Ellie gets a text from Abby of the cleaned-up bloody photo Wallis was holding -- it's of a young woman in a cadet uniform. As they pass through the school gates, Tony remembers when he arrived. The basketball coach Gerald Tanner picked him up from the train station and dropped him off with "The Godfather" reference lost on teen Tony. Tanner tried to offer Tony words of comfort, but teen Tony snottily shot him down.

Cut to the present, Tanner greeting Tony and Ellie. He recognizes Christine Sanders from her photo -- but she's also dead. Sanders was about to be the school's first female valedictorian when she began to withdraw and then OD'd on pills 10 days ago.

Wallis was Sanders' commanding officer, but Tanner says dating among the ranks is forbidden.

In the lab, Abby tries to match the knife used to kill Wallis. Tracking calling cards, McGee reports that a cadet named Lucas Craig, the senior cadet was the one who called Wallis.

Abby remotely turns on Wallis' cell phone and tracks it to the home of Frederick Cantor.

Back at Remington, Tony does 5 a.m. push-ups but quits when he notices the overweight cadet next to him laboring. He told the drill leader to get the cadet, "Piggy," to the nurse but got in trouble for insubordination instead.

Back at the school, Lucas Craig tells Tony and Ellie that he called Wallis after Christine died because they had been dating for a year.

Tony notices a man at a pick-up nearby eyeing them.

Gibbs visits Frederick Cantor, Wallis's mentor, and an RMA grad, who's working with tools in his wood shop. He started a scholarship program and Wallis was a recipient. Wallis was a mess when he came to see Cantor. Cantor says Wallis came from a really bad part of town and his parents are out of the picture.

On the drive back from RMA, Tony tries to forbid Ellie from telling McGee anything about their visit. They get a call from a man who claims to have information about Wallis' death. They've just reached DC and it's the night of Ellie's dinner, but they turn around.

Ellie calls Jake and Tony calls Gibbs to explain, but they're already at the diner. McGee gets a text as he walks in, he sizes up the situation and bails before they see him. Gibbs turns serious and asks Jake what he knows about Russian-Palestinian relations.

Back by Remington, Tony and Ellie meet their mystery caller -- "Piggy" aka Travis. He takes Ellie and Tony to his house and is very paranoid about RMA hearing him. He works for the school now, but says Christine was pushed to suicide by "honor corps."

Tony remembers when he was a cadet, practicing on the basketball court alone one night. The lights went out and five cadets came in and surrounded him, announcing they were "honor corps" and they were going to punish him for breaking the rules. Just as they were surrounding him, Coach Tanner interrupted and told Tony he'd made the team.

Tony thought Tanner put an end to honor corps, but Travis explained they just made basketball players off-limits. Travis says honor corps "disciplined" her every night for a month before she died. He told Wallis the same thing when he visited and Wallis seemed to know who to go after.

Alone in the office, McGee answers a ringing phone on Gibbs' desk -- it's Jake's. Gibbs finds a police report Christine filed about being stalked.

Tony and Ellie go to her stalker, Lucas Craig. Tony finds a gray Honor Corps armband in Craig's locker. Craig relents and says Wallis was furious when confronted him. Craig admits he pushed Christine too far and caused her to kill herself. Wallis was ready to fight Craig, but Tanner stopped him.

Back at the lab, Abby announces the tire tracks at the crime scene were from custom tires for a 1972 Citroen.

Back at RMA, Tony and Ellie look at Tanner's Citroen and find cleaned-up blood in the trunk. They arrest Tanner.

Tony remembers trying to hotwire Tanner's car as a cadet and Tanner catching him. Rather than busting him, Tanner gives him a pep talk and assures him he'll protect him from honor corps. "Take a stand and I'll stand with you," Tanner says.

Back in interrogation, Tony doesn't relish facing his former mentor. Tanner says he doesn't know how the blood got in his trunk. Tanner, who is now the school's provost, says he couldn't get rid of honor corps. He says he stopped Wallis from going after Craig and told him exposing honor corps would hurt the school.

He says Wallis was alive the last time he saw him and reminds Tony that everyone knows where he keeps his spare car key. (Tony remembers the end of Tanner busting him trying to hotwire the car -- Tanner showing him the key is in the sun visor.)

Later, Abby examines Tanner's car in the garage. The spare key was still in the visor. Wallis' fingerprints were all over the car. His killer drove the car back. Abby found wax in the car, like the kind a carpenter would use. Gibbs wants to find the security footage from the bus station after the car was returned.

Gibbs pays Frederick Cantor another visit to his tool shop. When Gibbs accuses him, Cantor goes for a chisel -- the murder weapon. Then he admits Wallis came back to see him after going to RMA, wanting to expose honor corps. Cantor didn't want to let Wallis hurt RMA and his legacy. Gibbs exposes the reason why John Wallis was willing to expose RMA and that it prompts Gibbs to arrest Frederick Cantor off-screen for the death of John Wallis.

On the way out of the office, Tanner runs into Tony and tells him that he is resigning from RMA, he accepts the fact that he disappointed DiNozzo for disappointing Anthony DiNozzo making him responsible for Honor Corps forcing Christine Sanders's death to occur. Gerald Tanner mentions to DiNozzo that he's proud of him,

Back at his desk, Ellie gives Tony a photo of a photo she took of him on flag duty. She encourages him to embrace his past.

Jake joins Ellie after being in closed-door NSA meetings all day. He says Gibbs was easy to talk to, but he can't tell her about any of it.

Tony puts the picture up on his wall and then calls Travis to meet for a late dinner.