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Your NCIS security clearance has just been upgraded! Executive producer Steven D. Binder gave us a peek at the case file for Season 22 of the military crime procedural — and it’s packed with action, emotion, and a close call with the end of the world.
Read it fast before it gets redacted. (This interview has been edited for length, clarity, and federal government censors.)
What’s the status of Special Agent Jessica Knight (Katrina Law) and Chief Medical Examiner Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen) after he broke up with her in the Season 21 finale after learning she’d been offered a job in California?
Steven D. Binder: It’s months later. Knight’s on the West Coast [in her new job as chief REACT training officer]. They’ve settled into the new normal of not being together. Jimmy is dating. We’re going to learn a little bit about that. He’s been busy as a single man; that will make an appearance in the most inopportune time. [In the premiere] Knight encounters a very serious problem involving her skills as a hostage negotiator. There’s certain things you never do, and that’s what [she] does. As a result, her and Jimmy are going to get a chance to have part two of the conversation that we didn’t see in the finale. There’s a Part 3 to that conversation that we’ll see in Episode 4 when World War III is starting.
Michael Yarish/CBS
World War III?!
[NCIS is] in charge of a very little thing and that little thing has the potential to become a big thing and we are trying to keep it from becoming a big thing. They’ve got 42 minutes. It’s [an] almost real-time episode. Jimmy and Knight are going to get a chance to have Part 3 of who and what they are and what they’re going to be and what they’re not going to be. There’s huge stakes that can blow up and then very huge stakes for these two in a completely different way. The world is not going to end. We have [forensic scientist] Kasie [Diona Reasonover] to thank.
Did you ask Brian Dietzen and Katrina Law about the direction they wanted their characters’ relationship to take?
With an actor’s character, if [actors] care about what they’re doing — and all of our people do — they’ll be protective. They’ll have stakes, they’ll have thoughts. I took both of their temperatures. What do you guys think? Where are you guys at? They both had very different takes on ways their characters would respond. I was like, this is gold. I’ll blame them if you don’t like it, is what I’m saying. [Laughs]
How are the characters handling it deep down?
In a way that emotionally mature adults should be. That doesn’t mean their feelings aren’t spiking and peaking and confusing, but they’re behaving. Everyone’s putting on their game face. [Jimmy’s daughter] Victoria [Elle Graper] would like them to be back together. That complicates but also crystallizes things. You’re forced to have thoughts because your child is sending you texts every morning [that say] “breakup, Day 54; breakup Day 55.” They are aware they have broken up and have not moved on.
Michael Yarish / CBS
Will we learn more about the hallucinations Alden Parker (Gary Cole) had in the finale? He saw two children on a ship. One appeared to be him and the other was a girl named Lily.
Parker’s not sure what it all means. He is just as confused as anybody, maybe even more confused. So before the audience just gets a download from Parker about what it is, Parker is going to need to have to go on a little journey and discover “who is this person? What happened? What am I seeing?” He doesn’t know whether it’s a memory or not. it’s historical based. Let’s put it that way.
How does Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) handle losing Knight? Once he gets close to someone, they move on.
Poor Torres. Every time he gets a family member, they leave. So he’s like, “I’m going solo Torres again.” He goes undercover with some bad people and it doesn’t work out well. He gets into a lot of trouble. He’s on this road of undercover loner, not really having relationships. Where does that road lead? We pair him up with a grizzled, hard-boiled private detective who is at the end of that road and is about to leave humanity behind and retire to some beach and drink himself to death. Is this Torres’ future or is he able to bring this guy back from the brink?
Does Knight’s departure affect anyone else?
Knight [leaving] inspired a chain reaction of events. McGee [Sean Murray] applies for a deputy director position in Colorado to move up in the world. A lot of the fans have wondered why he hasn’t done so. It’s an open position and it will be filled by the end of the [premiere] episode. Kasie’s smarting a little bit from Knight being gone. Papa Bird Parker has an empty nest in the squad room. He wants his team back but very quickly gets embroiled in something that Knight gets into trouble with. This case will bring our team back together on one level, not necessarily “yay, we’re all back here in NCIS,” but paths will cross.
Michael Yarish / CBS
Can you hint about any cases coming up?
We’ve got an odd couple episode with Jessica Knight. She has to do protective custody for this DC socialite. It’s a sort of a Miss Congeniality situation [the 2000 film] where Sandra Bullock was this cop who had to go undercover in the pageant world. Knight’s going to learn that this vacuous housewife/DC socialite world may actually be running things and a lot more savvy than she’s given them credit for. In Episode 2, Vance [Rocky Carroll] is juggling diplomatic talks, bodies, conspiracies, and an old girlfriend who may or may not be keeping some secrets of her own against him. FBI Deputy Director Sweeney [Erik Passoja] reappears and they go head-to-head in a huge and important serious way. There will be cuffs on one of them and fights and some people duct taped to autopsy room tables and stuck into drawers. It goes off the rails. The theme of the season could be, “stuff “happens at the worst time ever.
