‘NCIS’: What Does This Big Step Mean for Jimmy & Jessica’s Relationship?

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It’s been, as Brian Dietzen puts it, “a tough few years” for Dr. Jimmy Palmer on NCIS, but fortunately, his character is also quite often optimistic.

“He’s lost his wife. Then, with the shakeup of the team and Gibbs [Mark Harmon] leaving, our team went through some changes. That said, Jimmy’s also fallen in love,” Dietzen tells TV Insider. And like us, he’s a fan of Jimmy’s relationship with Special Agent Jessica Knight (Katrina Law). “I love doing scenes with Katrina Law. She’s just one of the most terrific actresses, and we tend to play together very, very well.”

Their romance is going so well that it’s now time for one of the next steps: meeting the family. Specifically, her father (Russell Wong)—an NCIS agent in the Far East Field Office—is coming for a visit. “Everything doesn’t necessarily go according to plan, without giving too much away about what’s going to happen, but that’s NCIS, right? Nothing can go exactly as planned,” Dietzen previews.

“But as we’ve seen with Jimmy and Jessica over the last year and a half, there have been a few roadblocks along the way, and there have been a few bumps in the road on their journey towards blurting out ‘I love you’ in the squad room,” he continues. “This could be one of the more important times within their relationship that we’ll see to say, what is going to come next and who are we together? This episode and meeting her family is going to bring up a lot of questions of, what are we going to do? And while I won’t answer what their conclusions are—in fact, I don’t think the episode does, if I’m being honest—it does open a lot of doors and opens a lot of questions for the future.”

Before that, and after the heavy, heartbreaking tribute to Ducky and the late David McCallum (co-written by Dietzen), the team is going to engage in Walk-a-Mile Day, which sees them switching jobs at work, in the February 26 episode. That has to lend itself to some fun moments. But what about Jimmy? It’s not like just anyone can do the medical examiner’s job.

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“Here’s the thing: If you’re going to walk a mile in Jimmy Palmer’s shoes, the good part is you’re a doctor, but you’re not going to kill anybody, so if you mess up, what’s the worst that can happen? You’re going to misplace an organ or that sort of thing,” says Dietzen. “But yes, Jimmy’s going to try out a different job on Walk-a-Mile Day, and I won’t reveal what it is, but it’s something that you wouldn’t really suspect Jimmy would do or enjoy or do well, and I think that’s why it’s was chosen and it’s quite fun.”

Beyond that, Dietzen promises that “there’s going to be a lot happening” for Jimmy. “What’s great about this character that I’ve always loved is that there’s always optimism in this guy’s heart, and the glass is always half overflowing. So you’re going to get that optimism. You’re going to get that ‘yes, we can’ sort of thing. And that’s going to be challenged a few times over the course of this season in potentially some pretty big ways. We got some big stuff coming up for our guy, and it’s going to affect him hugely, but I know Jimmy’s going to be trying to see the bright side of things, even though there’s going to be a lot more challenges thrown his way.”

Also coming up is the 1,000th episode in the NCIS franchise, airing April 15. “Is that nuts, or what?” Dietzen says in disbelief. “We’re not like a daytime soap where we get a couple hundred of these a year. We only get 19, 22, something like that. It’s wild.” The episode is written by Christopher Waild, “who’s one of our best writers,” Dietzen raves. “A lot of our writers are the best writers, but Chris is just wonderful at this, and he’s also very encyclopedic when it comes to our show. He really loves this show, its history, and everything. So I think he’s just the absolute perfect person to write it.”

NCIS, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS