This Is The Most Chaotic Good Character On NCIS

On the surface, NCIS is a show about a group of criminal investigators. The acronym that provides the show's title is the name of both a real-life law enforcement agency and a fictionalized version of it that serves as the home base for the series' protagonists. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, as it's titled in full, is responsible for investigating any and all crimes pertaining to the Navy and, occasionally, other branches of the military. Thus, the central cast of NCIS is generally investigating or otherwise trying to prevent crime carried out by — or targeted toward — military personnel.

Since it debuted in 2003, NCIS has become extremely popular, and the series has achieved its success not just on the strength of its fictional criminal cases but its characters. Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) is more or less the series' lead, but more often than not, NCIS foregrounds members of its extensive supporting cast over him. In fact, Harmon is even rumored to be leaving the series prior to the debut of NCIS' 19th season. If so, leading character duties would be passed on to the ensemble cast entirely.

Not only does NCIS feature a sizable stable of actors, but its cast is constantly in flux. A number of landmark NCIS stars have left over its 18 seasons, and the show has periodically added new players in their wake. All these characters have run the gamut in terms of ethics, from purely lawful and good to genuinely evil. Only one character, however, embodies the Dungeons & Dragons "chaotic good" alignment fully, serving as the sole NCIS hero who doesn't always play by the rules.

The alignment of Abby Sciuto (Pauley Perrette) is immediately apparent to anyone familiar with the character, even on a surface level. Professionally, Abby is a forensic scientist so, when her co-workers are in the field, she's usually confined to her lab. Abby famously undercuts what might otherwise be a typically sterile environment, however, with her goth fashion sense. This even briefly becomes a point of contention in the episode "Silver War," when an employee of NCIS Director Jennifer Shepard cites Abby for a dress code violation. She immediately complains and resolves the issue, continuing to work in spiked and studded clothing.

Sometimes, Abby's chaotic approach to heroism gets the better of her. In the season 6 episode "Toxic," Army Sergeant Robert King tricks Abby into working on the development of a deadly biological weapon by posing as a sick patient. "You made me care about you," Abby says after NCIS apprehends the villain, attempting to explain her involvement in his scheme. In "Two Steps Back," Abby gets her revenge, forcing a confession out of King by convincing him that she dosed him with cyanide. Thus, her sense of good above all else made her vulnerable to King, while her chaotic sense of justice led to his downfall.

Other times, Abby's chaotic sensibilities simply lead to satisfying results. In the season 5 episode "Dog Tags," Abby believes so strongly in the innocence of a dog accused of murder that she clears its name by finding the true culprit when no one else is willing to do so. As she explains in the season 8 episode "Cracked," making order out of chaos is simply what she does every day.