NCIS season 17: Five interesting moments from Lonely Hearts

1. The Gibbs and Sloane dating rumor

One of the biggest NCIS rumors is that Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and Jack Sloane (Maria Bello) have both a professional and personal relationship. But Torres was the only character to pick up on the potential attraction—until “Lonely Hearts.”

In this episode, Sloane received chocolates and flowers from an alleged “secret admirer” prior to the start of her work day. Based on the recent interactions between Gibbs and Jack in NCIS season 17, the assumption is that Gibbs is Sloane’s secret admirer. But that doesn’t seem like Gibbs, does it?

Sloane is excited about her gifts, and offers the rest of the team some of the chocolates. When she asks Gibbs if he wanted a piece, he slyly walks back towards her, picks up a piece of chocolate, and gives her a soft kiss on the cheek—in front of McGee, Bishop, and Torres. So NCIS fans could certainly read something into that moment, as the characters definitely did!

But Gibbs is known for being blunt and straightforward, not “lovey-dovey” and spontaneous. So would he really go out of his way to play Cupid on Valentine’s Day? That’s Sloane’s initial reaction, too, yet her teammates make her start to think otherwise. She has the box sent down to Kacie’s (Diana Reasonover) lab to test for fingerprints before finally asking Gibbs if he is her secret admirer or not.

That leads to a fun, if awkward, interaction between the two. “The whole office thinks it’s you,” Jack tells Gibbs, who replied, “I wish I’d thought about it.”

By the end of the episode, the truth comes out. There’s been a mistake in the mail delivery, and the Valentine’s gifts that Sloane received were supposed to go to a woman named Sloane Jackston (guest star Desi Dennis-Dylan). Jackston finds Sloane in her office and tells her about the mix-up. So that should be the end of the speculation, shouldn’t it? Well, not quite.

There is in fact a Valentine’s Day card for Sloane that was brought to Jackston’s desk by mistake. But that’s not from Gibbs either—her daughter Faith reached out to her to let her know that she’s thinking about her on Valentine’s Day.

So we can answer this question: Gibbs and Jack are not dating. Although some NCIS fans were let down by that news, viewers can be happy that Sloane is rekindling the long lost relationship with her daughter. The moment when we learn the card is from Faith is almost breathtaking.