NCIS: Peat's Sour Cream & Onion

I've been wanting to write about these crisps for a while now but I haven't been close enough to the TV to check them out properly.

Sorry? Close enough to the TV?

Yup. Jonathan Cole (played by Scott Wolf) is a recurring baddie in Season 9 of NCIS who is presented as an ex-special forces operative who will stop at nothing to murder anyone who gets in his way. There's a whole webpage devoted to this character. It's a complicated plot I have never really got my head around but obviously he is, in the end, outwitted by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs and carted off to prison forever.

And at the end of the Season, NCIS is battling Harper Dearing, maddened by the death of his son in an accident on board a US Navy vessel, who will stop at less than nothing to draw attention to his grievance. Cue many explosions and a number of dead bodies.

So in Season 9 Episode 24 Till Death Do Us Part, the season finale, Gibbs springs Cole from prison to help out with the Harper Dearing problem (played by Richard Schiff - Toby Ziegler from The West Wing), and in his first scene Cole is shown enthusiastically snacking on this packet of Peat's crisps. Mmmn, he says [crunch, crunch], Sour Cream & Onion, it's true that everything taste better on the outside.

OK, so NCIS uses a lot of fake brands one way and another, like Caf-Pow! (not Coca Cola nor Pepsi) to which Abby is seriously addicted,  and Beltway Burger (not sure if that is supposed to be Burger King or McDonalds or what) from where Gibbs' and Fornell's ex wife's third husband Victor (are you following this?) is abducted late one night in Season 9 Episode 7.

Oh, and Gibbs does not drink Starbucks coffee but a brand labelled Hot Fresh Coffee although the cup does have a distinctly Starbucks look.

So we're not talking about a a real packet of crisps then?

No. Sadly not. But I was watching yet another repeat of NCIS this weekend and was close enough to the TV screen (and paying close enough attention) to take in more information about these crisps than previously. Often I only listen to an episode I know well, you know chopping onions or washing up, and that's not helpful if you want to check out the brand of crisps most favoured by NCIS agents.

I can't find an image of these pretend crisps anywhere online, so instead see below for a photo of Scott Wolf as Jonathan Cole. Wouldn't it be fun if someone were to produce these crisps for NCIS fans to try? They might be rather good. You never know.

Update in March 2024: How did I never notice this before? In Season 5 Episode 2 Family, Abby is shown eating from a giant packet of crisps labelled Salt O’Rama. U.K. TV channel 5USA is showing every single episode of NCIS in a seemingly endless stream of repeats and re repeats at the moment.