Timothy McGee

Timothy "Tim" McGee is a fictional special agent from the NCIS television series by CBS Television, portrayed by Sean Murray. The character first appeared in the first season episode "Sub Rosa" and appeared on a recurring basis thereafter, later graduating to regular character status in Season 2.

Character
McGee is a young agent attached to Gibbs' team at the beginning of Season 2. He is a conservative dresser, apparently nervous around women, and gifted with computers. He is a federal agent by design, but also enjoys writing mystery/crime novels (first mentioned in Dead Man Talking).

His apartment is small with an open floor plan and a bay window, wooden floors and exposed brickwork. The contents reflect his interests in fiction writing (old fashioned manual Remington typewriter, meerschaum pipe à la Sherlock Holmes), vinyl record collection, computers (various pieces of hardware scattered in boxes) and on-line gaming. He has a picture of his grandmother on his cup. The apartment is situated 5 miles from a college his sister Sarah attends and boards. He has no couch and his TV hangs on the wall in front of his bed. He lives in Silver Spring (as does Ziva) (Iced) and his apartment number is 3.

McGee is allergic to cats and poison ivy (of which he has had two encounters), and gets seasick even in port. He has an as yet unexplained dislike of maggots. He also likes to play online games and indicates he plays the character of an Elf Lord which Gibbs and Tony like to remind him of. He has indicated an interest in antiques, and has watched the television show "Antiques Roadshow."

McGee has written a bestselling book called Deep Six under the pen name "Thom E. Gemcity," an anagram of his name. It features fictionalized versions of Gibbs, Tony, Ziva, Abby, Jimmy Palmer and himself as "Tibbs", "Tommy," "Lisa," "Amy Sutton," "Pimmy Jalmer," and "McGregor." As of Cover Story, he is trying to complete the sequel, Rock Hollow: The Continuing Adventures of L.J. Tibbs.

By Season 4 McGee has acquired more money and spent it on a number of items including a Porsche, a new watch, a phone with video capability, and a plasma TV. The source of the money was a mystery to his co-workers, until they discovered that the money came from his royalties for his book.

During Season 5, McGee is attacked by a dog, only later to adopt the dog. Abby would have adopted the dog, but it wasn't allowed in her apartment. Abby then persuaded McGee to take in Jethro, the dog, not Gibbs.

He is sometimes referred to as Elflord by Special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

In the fourth-season episode In the Dark, Abby describes him as a "mildly neurotic introvert with a highly sensitive ego."

Career
From the episode Doppelganger, we learn McGee worked after school as a burnt-potato-chip picker and during the summer between his Freshman and Sophomore years he was a Porta Potti cleaner. He has also cleaned asbestos. There is also a hint he had another job when he starts a sentence 'Before I joined NCIS...' but the sentence was never finished. In Pop Life, he mentions he used to work in a bank.

He was also a cub scout (Webelos) in his youth.

McGee is first introduced in the Season 1 episode Sub Rosa, where he is stationed with the NCIS office at Norfolk. This is the only episode McGee is seen to hold his pistol in his right hand - the prop department didn't have a left handed holster - although in the opening credits of seasons 3 and 4, the film has been reversed so that McGee is firing right-handed. During this time McGee had a carspace at Norfolk next to Cassie Yates (SWAK). He would appear occasionally at the request of Gibbs or DiNozzo throughout the season to render assistance with forensic computer science.

McGee permanently transferred to NCIS Washington to work under Gibbs in season 2. By the beginning of season 4, he had become much more confident in his abilities as an investigator. The episode "Kill Ari Part 1" reveals that McGee was the first intended sniper target of Ari Haswari at the close of season 2; McGee's life was saved when he suddenly dove for cover behind his vehicle to avoid fire from another terrorist unrelated to Haswari. Haswari subsequently abandoned his attempts to shoot McGee and proceeded to shoot and kill his primary target, NCIS special agent Caitlin Todd. The third season episode "Probie" reveals that prior to McGee becoming involved in a shooting in which an undercover police officer dies, he had never killed anyone before. The episode leaves it ambiguous as to whether McGee actually fired the fatal shot, although in the later episode, "Jeopardy", McGee refers to himself as having shot the cop.

Education
McGee was 18 when he was a junior at MIT. He has a Masters in Computing Forensics at MIT and did a year of independent study in advanced string theory at the same institution (Red Cell). He also has a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins. He graduated top of his class at FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center - Caught on Tape). McGee's college GPA was 3.9: he failed a fencing class in his Sophomore year. His economics lecturer was Professor Bernbaum.

Relationships
During his time helping NCIS in season 1 he began a relationship with Abby. He led Tony to believe he got a tattoo of 'Mom' on his butt to impress her, (which Gibbs seemed to know about already) slept in her coffin and wrote poetry (with fingersnaps) for her. He admits to doing "kinky" things with Abby and having plunged into the seedier side of the Internet with her. Their relationship cooled when Abby refused to categorize the 'state' of their relationship. McGee and Abby remain close friends sharing many hugs and the occasional chaste kiss, almost always initiated by Abby.

In the season 3 episode 'The Voyeur's Web' McGee mentions that he has a girlfriend who sends him strange videos from the web.

As revealed in the Season 4 episode Witch Hunt, McGee had a brief relationship with a Washington Redskins cheerleader. The two played an online game on the same server.

McGee lives in awe of Gibbs, though with substantially less fear in the mix than the rest of the characters.

McGee regularly suffers at the hands and smart aleck comments of DiNozzo, due to his being the newest agent on the team. Due to this position, DiNozzo refers to McGee as "Probie" (short for Probationary Field Agent), even though McGee was promoted to full agent in season 2.

McGee gelled well with both Tony and Kate in a sibling way as part of the team and was really the first one who got along with Ziva when she joined the team after Kate's death. Despite his sibling relationship with Kate, his images of her after her death in Kill Ari may reveal some hidden fantasies. She appears first as Trinity from The Matrix in a PVC bodysuit, leading Tim to quip "Oh my god, I'm turning into DiNozzo". At this, the vision shifts up a gear, presenting Tim with an S&M Mistress Kate - complete with severe leather corset, steel collar & cat 'o nine tails (a whip).

In Season 4's episode "Twisted Sister", it is revealed that McGee has a sister named Sarah McGee (played by Sean Murray's real life step-sister Troian Bellisario, executive producer Donald Bellisario's daughter). She first appeared in Season 2's Red Cell and again as a picture on McGee's iPod in the Season 3 episode Family Secret.