NCIS Goes the Way of Law and Order with Christian Suicide Bomber, Honor Killer Plots

It is with heavy heart that I report the following: Two great CBS television dramas, NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, went the way of Law and Order last night (hat tip to NewsBusters reader Chris Reising).  If you’re a fan and have not seen last night’s episode, be warned that this blog contains plot spoilers. [audio clip available here]

Now is the time of year when the network dramas are running the “Happy Holidays” message episodes.  The NCIS franchise, a sort of military CSI show, ran with this message in each of last night’s episodes – with a twist.  On NCIS, a young Marine is found murdered.  He is found to be a recent convert to Islam (formerly a Christian), and the son of a retired Christian Marine chaplain.  As the plot progresses, we find that the widow (also a Christian) has been, shall we say, unfaithful during her husband’s deployment.  The father (the chaplain) has been paying his son’s unit members to harass him into quitting the Marines.  And the murderer, we find, is the brother of the deceased.

Why did one brother kill the other?  Simply put, the deceased Marine had dishonored his family’s name by converting to Islam – so the Christian brother killed him for it.  That’s right: NCIS featured a Christian honor-killing last night.

Next, CBS ran the Los Angeles-themed spinoff of NCIS.  The plot of this episode is particularly heinous.  Four wounded Marines (Explosive Ordinance Disposal technicians, essentially the bomb squad) return from Iraq.  One of the four is killed by an exploding cell phone (a favored tactic of Israel’s Mossad, incidentally), and the other three appear to have been targeted by the bomber.  This time, as the plot unfolds, we discover that one of the three remaining Marines appears to be the bomber – but which one could it be?  The Muslim, who appears to be eluding the NCIS agents, or one of the two Christians?

In an interrogation scene with the NCIS forensic psychologist, we find out that the Muslim is innocent – and that the Bible-quoting (and distributing) Christian is actually a demented bomber, seeking absolution for the things he did in Iraq.  Later, the concluding scene shows the mad bomber with an improvised suicide-bomber vest, attempting to kill himself and one of his unit members.  In the end, it amounts to an insane religious fanatic, trying to gain access to paradise by killing himself and as many “infidels” as he can.

The issue with this is clear: I have yet to see a report citing a Christian suicide bomber, or a Christian honor-killing, anywhere in the world.  And while not all Muslims are terrorists hell-bent on killing all non-Muslims, an inordinate amount of terrorists are Muslims.  Nor are these terrorists particularly upset with a lack of acceptance of Muslims by the Christian West – in fact, the issue seems to be more based non-religious points.  In the end, equating Christians to extremist Muslims is more than a stretch – it’s intellectually dishonest.

Of course, with the rest of CBS being in ratings shambles, I probably should not have underestimated their ability to screw this up too.  Political correctness may have just claimed another good show.