'NCIS: New Orleans' Recap, S1 EP5, 'It Happened Last Night'

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The NCIS spin off set in the Crescent City is off to a bit of a lackluster beginning for its first season, and the fifth episode opened up with a mysterious murder in the alligator-infested bayou.

After a dead Marine--Reed--was found washed up in the wet lands, the NCIS team discovered his cause of death was drowning, but the water found in the Marine's lungs was not the same water he drowned in.

The conclusion: the Marine was water-boarded.

The team can't find his wife, Marilyn Reed, so they go to the Reed household where they bump into and question a concerned neighbor/gossip queen. She tipped off the team to a suspicious, dark sedan parked in the neighborhood.

While on the Reed's property, Pride finds a blood splatter on the edge of a water fountain, which lead them to suspect Reed was drowned there.

When the team discovers video footage of the mysterious sedan, they learn Oliver, Marilyn's brother, was the one behind the wheel.

They confronted the suspicious brother of the missing woman, and he admitted that Marilyn was, in fact kidnapped.

According to a ransom video the kidnappers sent him, he had 24 hours to pay the kidnappers, or they were going to kill her.

Pride questioned Oliver's attorney, Linear, who was in charge of the funds that Oliver would need for ransom, and he had no idea of the Marine's murder. Meanwhile, Meredith questioned the neighborhood gossip queen again, and learned that the personal trainer was a little too friendly with Marilyn.

The personal trainer turned out to have a motive: he declared bankruptcy. But according to the kidnapper's profile, the personal trainer was not a match.

While investigating, the "trespassing" NCIS team was suddenly held at gun point by an angry property owner with a truck load full of moonshine, but still no sign of Marilyn.

However, Meredith found a disturbed patch of land near the river where the body of Reed was likely dumped.

Linear turned out to have forged the signature on the documents of Oliver's property, and when NCIS went to question him--the attorney was shot! "Now the only one who can lead us to Marilyn is dead," Pride said.

Time was ticking down, and with the Linear dead, luck looked bleak.

But Sebastian chimed in to mention the ransom video had background noise: sprinklers, like those you'd find in a greenhouse.

NCIS immediately booked it to the nearest garden estate to look for Marilyn, , and found her tired up and struggling in the back of a loading truck.