With a shortened season, NCIS is packing a lot into 10 episodes. And it sounds like the CBS procedural drama is going to be doing the same with the finale (airing May 6). The good news? We already know it will be back for its 22nd(!) season.
That finale “is going to be really good,” Rocky Carroll tells TV Insider (while talking to us for our aftershow, NCIS: Case Closed, for the 1,000th episode). “It’ll be good to have Vance back in the office. I don’t want to give away too much, but he’s walking wounded, but he’s back.” He’s referring to the bullet wound his character is healing from after the franchise’s milestone.
“I’m always amazed at how every time you think that we can’t top ourselves as far as the team getting in danger and getting in trouble, we seem to come up with something else,” continues Carroll. “We won’t be trying to save Vance from a burning building. I’m not nearly in as much trouble in the season finale as I am in the 1000th episode. But there is a global threat and there is another character on the show that—things don’t go as planned and we’re not exactly sure how things are going to end for one of our characters. I’m going to leave the audience guessing as to which one, but once again, the team has to circle the wagons and rally.”
When it comes to a cliffhanger, it’s “a little bit of both” a character’s fate and something else to set up Season 22. “I also think that we’re going to touch on some of the storylines that we’ve created,” Carroll adds. “Jimmy [Brian Dietzen] and Knight [Katrina Law] have this romance and then we introduced Agent Knight’s father, who has a very specific plan for the life of his daughter. And I think Jimmy and Knight are going to have to come to terms and make some very hard decisions about their future.”
Something that will have to wait until at least Season 22, if NCIS does return to it: Vance’s love life. It was in Season 20 that Marem Hassler was introduced as Deputy Lena Paulsen, a potential love interest for him. “I’m hoping that either Vance gets to go back to Germany or Germany comes to the United States,” Carroll shares. “We kind of talked about that and hopefully if there’s not a work stoppage and if we get a full season and we got 22 episodes, we may be able to go down that road again.”
In general, the star enjoyed that episode, recalling that Vance and Parker (Gary Cole) bonded in it. “I think a trip back to Europe might be in the works,” he hopes.
What are you hoping to see in the rest of the season? Let us know in the comments section, below.
NCIS, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS