The character Caitlin Todd is an NCIS agent, the token woman agent in a group of primarily men. The episode opens with foreshadowing as a snake wraps itself around Kate and Tony, her almost-romantic interest and coworker has to save her. Tony constantly makes remarks about her sexual appeal. In this episode alone he comments on her breasts and lies to McGee about having sex with her. This sexualizing is the first step in the, "Women in Refrigerators" trope. Soon after we learn that a group of serial terrorists (which is a whole other issue) is seeking revenge on NCIS agent Gibbs, the leader of Tony, Kate, and McGee's group. Then the character Ari is introduced and we learn he is the designated killer sent for Gibbs, but he becomes fixated on killing the women close to Gibbs (Kate and the forensics expert, Abby) as a form of punishment and a reminder of the murder of Gibb's first wife. To make matters worse, in a scene where he holds Kate hostage, there is even implication of sexual aggression and assault.
At this point in the episode the character of Kate is completely undermined as an incompetent, hyper-sexualized character whose sole purpose is to form this conflict with Ari and these supposed "terrorists". Not to mention, Ari also tries (and fails) to kill Abby, the scientist, in her own lab. Conveniently, Gibbs pounces on her and saves her from the bullet just in the nick of time. It should also be noted that later on in the season, the head director of NCIS who also happens to be a woman and Gibb's ex-lover is also shot on a job with him and later replaced by a male. Again, to "punish" Gibb's. The issue with this is that the grief is then directed around Gibb's and not all of the women characters that actually die. Kate dies simply for the process of mourning for the men to be shown and the development of new character.
As if being held hostage, terrorized, and sexually assaulted isn't enough, Kate is shot directly in the head at the end of the episode, and the team learns that her death was not accidental- Ari did not aim for Gibbs and shoot her instead. This is also reinforced visually, as we then see her pale naked body (covered by medical cloths) on the table in the biopsy lab. There is a bullet directly through her head and the film writers made sure that this was visible. Being shot anywhere on the face is usually perceived as an even more "brutal" death than being shot anywhere else on the body.
After all of this, beginning in the next episode, Tony talks to his imagined Kate, now with a bullet in her head, and explains how attracted to her he was. After a brutal murder, the character Tony still fixates on her sexual appeal and centers his grief around this. Kate herself takes on an almost seductive look even though she is dead, and we're left to mourn and pity Gibbs as he has now lost another woman close to his heart.
This is the epitome of the, "Women in Refrigerators" trope. Not only are women killed, they are tortured, sexualized, diminished to a body, and then killed to top it all off. This theme within different mediums of entertainment is dangerous because it objectifies and constructs a sort of pleasure in looking at these women being sexualized and killed. How often do we see men being held hostage, sexually abused, and then shot in the head graphically, in slow motion? The answer is never. Or very, very rarely, and these men are often highly feminized anyway. The depiction of Kate and other women like her promotes all kinds of troublesome notions about women and their power in society in relation to sexuality, and continues to deconstruct woman in our society today.
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