The late, great film director, John Hughes, built a career on teen angst and the horrors of high school. Helming the likes of THE BREAKFAST CLUB, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, WEIRD SCIENCE and SIXTEEN CANDLES, Hughes touched that part of the audience’s psyche that shudders at the smell of fishsticks in the school cafeteria or the stench of the gym after phys ed class.
Examining the subsets of high school culture was a Hughes specialty…the brains, the athletes, the basket cases, the princesses and the criminals…were some of those subsets when THE BREAKFAST CLUB premiered in 1985. Over the years, the subsets have gone by different names…geeks, jocks, goths, weirdos, mean girls, hoods, the smart kids, nerds, bullies, juvenile delinquents, et al…but the stereotypes live on, both on screen and in real life. Each clique desperately holds on to its identity like a suit of armor as a defense against bullies. Some groups do their best to berate and exclude, beating down the self-esteem of the others, causing the less-popular teens to hate their fellow students even more than they hate trigonometry.
Such was the life of a teenage Timothy McGee (Sean Murray). Tonight, on NCIS, McGee’s torturous high school life is about to be laid bare for his co-workers to see. Not only was young Tim a geek, a smart kid with an early affinity for computers, his father’s Navy career resulted in several moves for his family, making Tim the perpetual “new kid” in school.
At one of his many high schools, Tim created a unique computer password which now has surfaced during the investigation of the murder of a Department of Defense contractor. His potential connection to the case forces McGee to return to one of his less-favorite high schools.
When Tim resurrects one of his antique computers, he is contacted by the suspect. Tim and Delilah (recurring guest star, Margo Harshman) realize that they must safeguard their twins when the intruder’s efforts to steal Tim’s archaic high school computer puts the perpetrator in the McGees’ apartment building.
Perhaps the thief still thinks of Tim as a McGeek and not as an NCIS Special Agent. But the adult Timothy McGee is no longer a person who can be put in a “box,” nor is he intimidated by high school mentality. The adult McGee is quite capable of handling and dispatching a threat.
Thankfully, as people mature, the vulnerable high-schoolers are able to shed the unimportant, untrue and often cruel stereotype assigned to them by their schoolmates. The stereotypes too often are exploited by other teens who are classless and self-important with no basis in reality for their own overconfidence.
Perhaps the cruelty is unintentional. Perhaps the offenders are just too stupid to realize that embarrassing others to advance one’s reputation reflects a shallow, lowborn personality. If you are a teen and your are reading this, know that cruelty rarely evolves into someone becoming a true future hero. If you are being tormented, tell someone who will understand. Many more adults than you think have been in your shoes and will be happy to listen.
Unfortunately, the result of this bullying, whether intentional or simply dehumanizing others through class warfare, too often ends in violence. Check out the news on any given week to see the ramifications. More often, though, the put-upon kids grow up to be achievers, leaving their tormentors in the dust.
Such is the fate of Timothy Farragut McGee, NCIS Special Agent. The awkward teen has grown up, leaving (most of) his baggage at the station to become a man who makes his former classmates pale by comparison.
A lot of answers to life can be found in John Hughes films. To quote THE BREAKFAST CLUB, “You see us as you want to see us—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain…and an athlete…and a basket case…a princess…and a criminal. Does that answer your question?” NCIS was the answer for McGee. Murray’s character has grown over the years, evolving from “the computer guy” to the “go-to guy” for Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his teammates, friends and family.
If only young Tim could have seen the person he would become, high school would have been less torturous and a blast from his past might not be plaguing him in the present.
If only life worked that way…
If you are a teen in distress, hang in there. Yes, NCIS is a television show and not real life, but real people make movies and TV shows. Many of them over the years, John Hughes among them, have seen your pain. And like Tim McGee, you will rise above the noise that is high school and become the person you always have been in your heart.
Guest stars in tonight’s NCIS episode, “Once Upon A Tim,” are Matthew Glave as Tim’s dad, Admiral John McGee, Charles Tyler Kinder, Sammi-Jack Martincak, Stephen Full and John Hartmann. “Once Upon A Tim” was written by David J. North and Steven D. Binder and directed by Tony Wharmby.
NCIS airs tonight (February 19) at 8:00 p.m. on CBS in the U.S. and on Global TV in Canada.
