‘NCIS’ Reveals McGee’s Shocking Connection to ‘The Rookie’s Patrick Keleher

McGee’s (Sean Murray) past comes back in a way he never would have expected in the Tuesday, March 17, episode of NCIS.

“In Too Deep” begins with the team getting what should just be a run-of-the-mill case: A murdered drone pilot leads to a missing woman. But that woman is someone that McGee knew very well … and let’s just say that it could change everything for him going forward. Warning: Spoilers for NCIS Season 23 Episode 12 ahead!

It’s at the crime scene that Palmer (Brian Dietzen) finds a photo of McGee’s old girlfriend, Olivia (Elena Goode), whom he dated 18 years ago for six months, back before he met his wife, Delilah. Olivia called it off to focus on her career, and they haven’t talked since, though she did email him two months ago, wanting to talk about something. He never found out what, and now he’s worried she’s in trouble and he wasn’t there for her. She works as a microbiologist in a research facility, and she’s a single mom to a teenage son.

Now, it looks like she’s been kidnapped — a missing persons report was filed six weeks ago — and the team’s investigation leads them to Trask Underground Research Facility. She was on a project developing biofuels, involving extremophiles that can be converted into renewable energy. There, in her office, McGee and Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) find a baboon heart hidden; it had been put under extreme stress, and the death was drug-related. But TURF doesn’t do animal testing, so was Olivia doing experiments on the side?

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During the course of the investigation, McGee talks to an intern from Stanford, Pete (The Rookie‘s Patrick Keleher), first about coworkers harassing him (and recalling his nicknames of probie and elf-lord) then about the case — because, it turns out, he’s been lying about who he is. He’s actually Mateo, Olivia’s 18-year-old son, trying to get answers about what happened to her … and McGee does the math and steps into the hall to begin panicking.

The next day, McGee comes into work after talking to Delilah, who wisely told him not to spiral until he takes a paternity test and knows for sure. But still, McGee’s worried about what he tells his kids and Mateo, and he’s upset about being an absent father for 18years when he prides himself on being a great dad. And so all McGee can do is wait for the results to come back and find Olivia while he does.

Mateo quickly figures out who McGee might be to him by the agent’s reaction and the request for his DNA. If he is his father, Mateo says he doesn’t care either way since he’s gone 18 years without a dad. All he cares about is getting his mom back. (Ouch!) Later, he asks McGee why he left her, and McGee tells him it wasn’t his choice and he never would’ve left if he’d known about him.

The team discovers that Olivia was checking out other Trask laboratories, seemingly having figured out that the boss, Lucas Trask (Joe Dinicol), was making a bioweapon using all of them combined. But when they bring in Lucas for questioning, he explains again that yes, he did fight with Olivia about the project, but he’s working on a contract with the military for a smart drug, and she actually helped him figure out a way to do it safer and cheaper. The clue to who took Olivia actually is in her past: There was a class action lawsuit after people died related to when she worked for a pharmaceutical company, whose lawyers made sure the victim’s families got nothing. One of those family members works as the chef at TURF. When he realizes McGee knows, he runs, taking Mateo as a hostage. Potential father and son then work together to take him down — and the good news is Olivia is still alive!

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As Olivia and Mateo are reunited, Kasie (Diona Reasonover) shows McGee the paternity test results. And so he sits down with Olivia to find out why she never told him he has a son. She didn’t know she was pregnant until after they broke up, she says, and she was young and scared and knew if she told him, he would’ve asked her to marry him, which would’ve been a mistake. She knew he was destined to be happier with someone else, and she knows she was right. Still, she denied both him and Mateo the chance to have a relationship for 18 years, McGee points out (rightfully so). Now, going forward, he wants to be part of Mateo’s life.

This is certainly quite the twist to throw McGee’s way, especially taking us back to Season 5 McGee (who probably would’ve gotten some interesting advice from Mark Harmon‘s Gibbs, Michael Weatherly‘s Tony, and Cote De Pablo‘s Ziva at the time). To be honest, we’re not quite sure how we feel about it just yet, especially since it would have been nice to see more of his and Delilah’s twins before introducing a new element to the family that is sure to draw more focus.

Meanwhile, tensions boil over between Parker (Gary Cole) and Vance (Rocky Carroll) when, as Palmer puts it, “mom and dad,” both have to go to FLETC to redo their weapons certification. Their instructor pretty much hates them when, first, Parker makes Vance give him answers (he was up late working on the case) then they bring their issues to the shooting range. Vance calls Parker out on being fast and loose all year long and putting everyone around him in danger, and in turn, the agent claims the director isn’t being a leader. Once they’ve been chastised, Parker notes that it’s seemed like Vance has turned his back on them. The director insists he hasn’t, but rather, he’s fighting for all of them; with that rumor of Army CID being shut down and being folded into NCIS, there will be cuts, so he’s working to save their jobs. He didn’t open up to Parker because it felt like he didn’t want to hear from him after his dad’s death. Parker apologizes for what he said back then.

However, it turns out that Vance was wrong about those rumors about CID, as he fills Parker in the final scene of the episode. CID isn’t being shut down and folded into NCIS. Rather, NCIS is being shut down! Uh-oh!

Listen, we’re not worried about NCIS’s future given the CBS drama has been renewed for Season 24. But it should make for an interesting 500th episode, airing on March 24. Read more scoop from executive producer Steven D. Binder about the milestone here.

What do you think of McGee having a teen son and NCIS being shut down? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS