NCIS Finale Recap: What’d Jess Decide About Her Future? And Who Is ‘Lily’?
It appears that the NCIS team will look a bit different when the long-running CBS drama returns in the fall with Season 22.
Heading into this year’s season finale, we knew that Director Vance would present Special Agent Knight with a unique opportunity — to be the REACT team’s chief training officer, based out of Camp Pendleton in Southern California. And while Jess was quick to tell Vance she’d mull the offer, she dragged her heels telling colleague and partner Dr. Jimmy Palmer about the decision before her. As such, when Jimmy got wind of his girlfriend’s possible new “chief” title via fellow team members, words were had.
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Jimmy came to regret that “eruption,” but was unable to apologize to Jess, given that she and Parker had gotten locked aboard a decommissioned, and soon-to-be-sunk Navy ship. During said crisis, Parker — who will be the first to tell you, repeatedly, that he is not one to be offering relationship advice — counseled Jess that we only get “one shot to make a difference, or make mistakes,” and there’s “no sense being afraid of making either one.” He said that if it were up to him, he’d “fight like hell” to keep her on his team, but he also acknowledged that “birds gotta fly.”
After hallucinating and then having a childhood memory about a young girl named Lily (whom a young Alden was playing hide-and-seek with aboard a ship), Parker made it out of that harrowing ordeal, thanks in part to a bold bit of swimming by Jess. Once the dust settled and the Case of the Week solved, Vance reminded Knight that she owed him an answer. Though Jess took a moment to regard the hospitalized Parker… and fellow “family” members Torres, McGee and Kasie… and, lastly, Jimmy, who’d just gotten the chance to apologize… she did not choose to keep this team intact, but instead accepted the new gig across the country.
“Hell yeah, sir,” is how she exactly responded to Vance. “Let’s do it.”
Were you surprised at all (or a lot!) by Jessica’s decision? Read what Katrina Law and one of the showrunners have to say about the twist. Also, what is your knee-jerk theory on Lily, the little girl Alden imagined seeing? A childhood bestie who slipped off that ship railing and (gulp) met a tragic fate?
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