Abby Sciuto

Prior to taking up a career in acting, Pauley Perrette had studied at John Jay School of Criminal Science in New York, having previously aspired "to work with animals, be in a rock 'n' roll band, or be an FBI agent." She eventually began acting, later saying "There's no drug that I ever did that worked as well as being an actor. What you're looking for with substance abuse is escape. But with acting, you can escape into 1,000 different things without almost killing yourself doing it. Acting is a total drug!" ==Characterization==

Abby is portrayed as having a gothic style of dress,) and has at least nine tattoos on her neck, arms, back, ankle, and other places. The spider web on her neck is not real, either, as producer Bellisario wanted the character to have a tattoo that would be visible (almost) all the time. However, Perrette has expressed dislike for the spider tattoo, saying, "It only takes a few minutes to do, but it feels like old chewing gum," Pauley Perrette commented, "Don (Bellisario) wanted to do Abby as an alternative-lifestyle person, but not as a junkie or a thief. She might be the smartest person on television." When asked about her depiction of a goth character, she responded that Abby "wouldn't call herself anything but Abby...What she represents is a smart, capable chick that cannot be reduced to a stereotype." Abby drives a candy-apple red 1930/31 Ford Model A coupe bearing a Washington, DC, personalized vanity plate "4NS CHIK" which is prominently featured in season five's "Dog Tags". She previously drove a hearse (mentioned in "Hiatus, Part I"), which ran poorly and had bald tires. Like Gibbs, Abby enjoys caffeine, When changing the artwork in her lab during "Hung Out to Dry", she states that she has a "Chagall feeling", a reference to Marc Chagall, a Jewish Belarusian artist whose main works came from fantasy and dreams. Her favorite term for something out of the ordinary is "hinky". It is also shown that she enjoys attending concerts, but her failure to wear earplugs at one of them left her with temporary hearing loss the next day, forcing her to ask DiNozzo for help analyzing some audio evidence. Abby has shown a tendency to become very agitated, to the point of near-panic, if any of the team is seriously hurt. When Gibbs was admitted to the hospital, Abby ended up on the verge of a nervous breakdown, pacing back and forth while delivering a rambling, disjointed stream-of-consciousness plea that explained (among other things) how close Gibbs and she were, the reason she was arriving after visiting hours, how she felt about Gibbs being injured, and how important it was to her that Gibbs not die from his injuries. Abby developed a fondness for Butch, a Navy sniffer dog, in the season five episode "Dog Tags". She renamed it "Jethro" in honor of Gibbs, because it was "handsome and quiet" like him. The dog was framed for the murder of a petty officer, as the dog was found at the murder victim's house, but Abby proved Jethro's innocence. Afterwards, Abby forced McGee to adopt the dog, much to his dismay (as Jethro had attacked him earlier in the episode). Abby would have preferred to adopt Jethro herself, but her landlord did not allow tenants to have pets. ==Character backstory==

Sciuto is portrayed as having a happy, normal childhood. Her younger brother, Luca, was first mentioned by name in the season-nine episode "Enemy on the Hill". He appears in season 10 in a flashback. Luca was portrayed by Tyler Ritter in Season 13 NCIS: New Orleans crossover episodes "Sister City (Part I)" and "Sister City (Part II)". She also mentioned that she has a niece and that her grandmother was an Olympic swimmer who won a silver medal. She has mentioned several uncles, including one named Teddy who owned a bar, one named Horace whom she referred to as Horace "the Haggler" during an episode, and one named Larry who apparently wore knee-high socks and fanny packs. Both her parents are deceased, although when they passed is never mentioned. Abby is a hearing child adopted by deaf parents and likes her music loud. In the episode "Seadog", Gibbs tells Tony that Abby knows how to use sign language because both of her parents were deaf. Abby has stated that she dreams of visiting the Galápagos Islands, Dollywood, and Israel before she dies. Abby graduated with full honors from Louisiana State University with a triple major in sociology, criminology, and psychology. She earned her master's degree from Georgia State University in criminology and forensic science. Sciuto's interest in forensics came from living near a wrecking yard and being intrigued by the cause and effect of the wrecks. A season nine episode "Enemy on the Hill," reveals that Abby has another brother, Kyle (played by Daniel L. Rivas), who is her biological brother, as it is revealed that Abby is in fact adopted. She appears well-versed in her field of study; It has been shown that she does all the work on the evidence herself. In season three, she was given an assistant named Charles "Chip" Sterling. She revolted, but eventually learned to put up with him. However, their working partnership did not last long, as Abby later discovered Sterling had framed DiNozzo for murder. Exposed, Chip threatened her with a knife; she promptly subdued him, hog-tied him with duct tape, and insisted on being allowed to work alone from then on, something to which then-Director Jenny Shepard agreed. It has also been mentioned numerous times that she is a devout Roman Catholic and is on a bowling team with several nuns. In the 2009 NCIS: Los Angeles episode "Random On Purpose," Abby is described as being in her late 20s, suggesting she was born in the early 1980s. (Actress Perrette was born in 1969, and was 40 when this episode first aired.) However, in a flashback in the 2013 NCIS episode "Hit and Run," Abby is shown to be 10 years old in the early 1980s, implying that she was born in the early 1970s. Resignation In the Season 15 episodes "One Step Forward" and "Two Steps Back;" Clayton Reeves, an MI6 agent, dies protecting Abby from a hitman hired to kill her. She is severely wounded in the attempt, but recovers and tracks down the man who arranged the hit―a black-ops expert whom she had encountered several years earlier. She tricks him into believing that she has spiked his coffee with a fatal dose of cyanide, then offers to give him the antidote in exchange for his confession; the ploy succeeds and he is quickly arrested by the agents. Abby subsequently resigns from NCIS to accompany Reeves' body back to England and start a charity in honor of Reeves and his mother to help the homeless. ==Relationships==

The character of Abby gets along well with all the rest of the team. In the episode "Crescent City", she is shown to have a relationship with Senior Special Agent Dwayne Cassius Pride, who runs the New Orleans NCIS office. Leroy Jethro Gibbs Gibbs is depicted as having a close (father/daughter-like) relationship with Abby, who is initially one of only two characters (the other one being Ducky) to have no fear of him. Gibbs is often seen giving Abby kisses on the cheek, and hugging her, especially when she does good work on her cases. He often brings her a fresh Caf-Pow when he arrives at the lab for information on a case, whether or not she has called him down to tell him about it. Gibbs generally tolerates Abby's goth dress style, knowing that she does a great job in her work, but often has to ask her to get to the point when she starts rambling. Abby sometimes turns to Gibbs when she needs to talk about something personal that is bothering her and he helps by listening to her. Both Gibbs and Abby are proficient with American Sign Language, as Abby grew up with deaf parents. On several occasions, Abby has been described as "the favorite", a fact that does not escape the rest of the team, but they do not begrudge her for it. Gibbs is also very protective of Abby, especially when she is in very serious danger. For example, in the episode "Bloodbath", she was threatened by a hit man hired by a defendant in a case in which she was testifying, which was also complicated by an ex-boyfriend, Mikel Mawher (guest star, Vincent Young), against whom she had a restraining order, but who then called her in violation of the order. When Gibbs found out about this, he pointedly told Mikel, "The only reason you're still able to walk is because I never heard about you until today!" Sometimes, that protectiveness extends from the rest of the team, as well. For example, in the episode "Spider and the Fly", Alejandro Rivera came to NCIS and began to threaten Abby for not sending in a report about the murder of Pedro Hernandez, Rivera's father, whom Gibbs had killed 20 years previously in revenge for Hernandez killing Gibbs' first wife, Shannon, and young daughter, Kelly. The entire team, including Ducky and Vance, ordered him to leave her alone and to not harass her, or to be escorted forcibly from NCIS Headquarters. Rivera eventually left of his own accord, but was later arrested for attempting to kill Gibbs and his father at a safehouse, and accidentally killing his sister, Paloma. Gibbs' concern for Abby's safety is such that he will even drop his trademark cup of coffee if she is in serious danger. Twice this occurred: in the episode "Kill Ari" when Ari shot at her while she was in her lab, the other time was in the episode "Driven" when she was trapped inside an experimental Humvee, which had been rigged to fill with exhaust fumes and suffocate its occupants. Ziva David Abby is portrayed as cold to Ziva David upon her arrival at NCIS as she, like the rest of the team, was still grieving over Kate Todd's death and the fact that Ziva was Ari Haswari's half-sister. Abby would scribble over pictures of Ziva and frequently mispronounce her surname to annoy her. Later, upset by Ziva's calm response to Gibbs being injured in a bombing, Abby slapped her. Abby eventually came around, and she and Ziva became good friends. This was solidified in the episode "Capitol Offense" when Ziva bought Abby a "chocoholic's choice" cupcake in gratitude for giving her a place to stay while her home was being fumigated for termites. After the cupcake unexpectedly vanished, Abby used her knowledge of forensics to prove McGee had stolen it, angering the rest of the team. Ziva flinched away from Abby's hugs at first, not understanding why she did so, but eventually came to accept them with more ease. In the season-seven finale, Abby was shown to be present at Ziva's citizenship ceremony, along with Ducky, McGee, and Jimmy Palmer. Later in the episode "Gone", the two bonded more when Ziva took in a teenaged girl who witnessed her father's murder and best friend's kidnapping as they both tried to help the girl feel at ease throughout the ongoing investigation. After Ziva's father was gunned down in "Shabbat Shalom", Abby was shown baking cookies in an attempt to help her feel better. Tony DiNozzo Abby's relationship with Tony is a friendly one, with the two making friendly, non-hostile jibes at each other, and squabbling about various topics, such as movies and personal possessions. Abby is perhaps the only member of the NCIS cast who displays a love and knowledge of movies that even comes close to matching Tony's. In "Twilight", after Tony narrowly avoids being part of an explosion on his first day back from sick leave after getting pneumonic plague, she runs at him and hugs him so hard he nearly falls over. In the episode, "Frame-Up", she almost single-handedly unravels the forensic evidence used to frame Tony of murder to clear his name, then subdues the killer – her assistant Chip Sterling – when he threatens her with a knife. He reasoned, "pairing up all four members of Gibbs' team romantically might seem like overkill, and the Tony-Ziva dynamic (even if not exactly acted upon) is so integral to the show's core that I'm not surprised they've kept McGee and Abby on more of a loving-sibling level." He further opined that he "wouldn't expect it to change". Donald "Ducky" Mallard Abby is called Abigail by Ducky, who addresses her by her full first name often. Though in the episode "Faking It", he thanked her and called her by using the name "Abby" instead of "Abigail". Abby used to have a fear of autopsy tables, which she shares with Ducky in episode 16 of season one, "Bête Noire" when Ducky and Kate are held hostage. The fear, although mostly overcome, can be brought back by major trauma, as seen in episode 2 of season 10. ==Appearance on NCIS: Los Angeles==

In the NCIS: Los Angeles episode "Random on Purpose", Abby, having been previously seen on video conference or talking to someone from her lab in Washington, D.C., arrived in Los Angeles to meet the Office of Special Projects (OSP) team as she informed them she was investigating a serial killer called the Phantom who had murdered 15 people all over the country and had also left no DNA or even physical evidence at the scenes. Having already formed a strong friendship with Eric Beale, Abby developed friendships with the OSP team, including G. Callen (Chris O'Donnell), Sam Hanna (LL Cool J), and most notably the operations manager Hetty Lange (Linda Hunt), who commented that Abby is "the first NCIS employee [she] has ever met with a sense of style". Kensi Blye, another NCIS Special Agent, who is an expert in forensics, praised Abby for her high levels of thinking, stating that she lived up to the hype. Abby was later kidnapped by the Phantom, later revealed to be a law firm receptionist named Tom Smith, who sought to kill her to keep his identity a secret, as he hoped to go around killing more people, having developed something of a taste for it. Although Vance mentioned that Gibbs and the NCIS Major Case Response Team were en route to Los Angeles to rescue her, Abby was saved due to the efforts of the OSP team and was later seen telling Gibbs and McGee on a video-conferencing link that she was okay. To date, Abby has not returned to Los Angeles nor has she reappeared in any video-conference calls which strongly suggests that her appearances in season one were just one-offs. ==Reception==

During the first season of NCIS, Ross Warneke from The Age wrote of the character, "Her role is pivotal in the show because, as with so many crime series these days, the forensics laboratory is the scene of much of the action. Perrette's only shortcoming is her diction. Am I the only one who has difficulty understanding her?" In January 2005, Bill Keveney from USA Today compared the characters on NCIS to those on Magnum, P.I. and commented, "the tattooed Abby, the presumed slacker who is anything but, is Bellisario's not-what-she-appears-to-be tribute to Magnum, a functioning, well-balanced Vietnam vet who contrasted many depictions of the era." Later in the show's run, reception continued to be mostly positive, with some critics regarding her as "easily the most outgoing and affectionate member of the group". In 2009, David Martingale of Star-Telegram wrote, "Abby Sciuto, a forensics scientist who, with her caffeine-fueled high energy and kooky Goth/cheerleader wardrobe, is one of a kind". June Thomas from Slate Magazine noted in November 2011 that, "Abby may look like a freak, but she's a church-going patriot." She has been described as "spacy" and "a witty, lovable personality with forensic skills that are even greater than her charm." C. Coville from Cracked criticized the choice to describe Abby's age as "late twenties" in her 2009 guest appearance on NCIS: Los Angeles, finding it unbelievable for someone who "has still somehow picked up a PhD in chemistry, bachelor's degrees in sociology, criminology, and psychology, and good knowledge of hacking and computer forensic science". In March 2011, AOL named Abby as number 95 on a list of the 100 Most Memorable Female TV Characters. In April 2013, a study by E-Poll Market Research listed Pauley Perrette and Cote de Pablo, who portrays Ziva David, among the top 10 most appealing celebrities in America. Perrette and de Pablo were ranked as numbers 5 and 3 respectively. ==References==