‘NCIS’: Will LL Cool J Return Next Season Again as Sam Hanna?

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The ever-expanding NCISverse will be taking over Tuesday nights in fall 2025, with the mothership, NCIS: Origins, and NCIS: Sydney airing in a three-hour block. And the good news is that thanks to past crossovers and the interconnected nature of the franchise, we’ve gotten updates on characters from canceled spinoffs like New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Hawai’i over the years. LL Cool J even reprised his role as Sam Hanna on NCIS in the April 21 Season 22 Episode 18 “After the Storm.” Executive producer Steven D. Binder would love to see him again — and that episode certainly set up future appearances.

While he was no longer Special Agent Sam Hanna — he’d left NCIS — the episode ended him on the path to return to the agency. “Seeing your team, working shoulder to shoulder with them, reminded me how much I missed it,” he’d explained to Vance (Rocky Carroll). The agency’s director assured him, “There’s always a place for you back at NCIS.” Sam did have something to take care of first, and Vance had a feeling it had to do with his old boss, Hetty Lange since he’d heard about her being spotted. (Sam said it was better he didn’t know.) The NCIS: LA series finale ended with Sam part of the team put together to rescue her.

“I wish we could have done more of that,” Binder tells TV Insider. “We were trying to service all the characters, so we didn’t necessarily create a story per se about one of the characters. And I’m getting the impression that that was a command decision fail on my part.”

Just like when it comes to any potential crossovers with NCIS: Tony & Ziva (also premiering this fall, but on the streaming service Paramount+), with Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo reprising their roles, there’s nothing official for a return from LL Cool J.

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“But I, as a showrunner, say LL always has a place at NCIS. They all do. They’re all great. They’re pros. We love having them,” says Binder. “It’s just people have very busy schedules, especially he does. So making it work is a logistical challenge and probably the bottleneck more than anything to why you may or may not see more. Not because there’s not a desire and a will, just because scheduling is very difficult. Todd showed up in [Episode 18]. From Episode 1, we were like, ‘OK, when can we make this work?'”

Do you want to see LL Cool J back as Sam Hanna next season on NCIS? Which other spinoff characters would you like to see appear? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Season 23, Fall 2025, CBS