#ncis feels

McGee has always been strangely like Gibbs.  Quiet strength, secretive, a good shot, sometimes underestimated, introverted, and with a normal hobby that they undertake in a not normal way (Gibbs woodworking without power tools and McGee writing on a typewriter.) But McGee has always been in a sort of hero-worship of Gibbs.  He has consistently been afraid of showing weakness to Gibbs.  He wants Gibbs to think of him as a competent agent.  And much like Tony, he's always going to think very highly of what Gibbs thinks and says. 

He's learned for years, from Gibbs, that he needs to keep things to himself, that he need to throw himself into the job without pause, that he needs to push his feelings down and never ever speak of them ever.  But this time he couldn't do that.  This time he needed to talk.  He needed to talk to Delilah, because there is obviously something else going on there (which is another post altogether) and he needed to talk to someone else, preferably Dr. Cranston.

Basically, McGee needed a push preferably from Gibbs, to talk to Delilah and to admit his feelings about well everything really.

And Gibbs needed the reminder that he needed to push him.  Hollis served as that reminder.  She reminded him what happens to relationships when one person pushes the other away.  She reminded him what happens when one person closes up and shuts down.  

A lot of Double Back's purpose I guess, for lack of a better term, was in McGee getting over the glitch in his relationship with Delilah because let's face the kid has commitment issues and possibly Abby issues otherwise he wouldn't have gone ten years, since Kate died really, without having a committed relationship.  But that wasn't all of it, the other part was getting Gibbs to a place that he could tell McGee that it was okay to be in a relationship.  That it's okay that the job isn't the most important thing in his life.  Which, by the way, is something Tony also needs.  

And considering that most of McGee and Gibbs relationship is displayed in grunts and glances, that wasn't easy.

But that's where Hollis came in.  Hollis gave Gibbs the push he needed to push McGee.  

Now switching gears a bit, a lot of people have said that since Delilah's last name is Fielding maybe the writers are signaling that she is his "Shannon" but I don't think so.  I don't think she's his "Shannon,"  I think Abby was his "Shannon" but since he can't have her he's moving on.  I think that's why it was Hollis in particular who came back for Gibbs, because there was a very real possibility that at the rate things were going Delilah was going to become McGee's Hollis.  

Or at least that's my thinking.  Or overthinking.