‘NCIS’ Mourns Vance & Gives Update on Next Director

How does NCIS — and the agency on the show — move forward after Vance’s shocking death in Episode 500? Well, it’s a slow process, but it begins in the Tuesday, March 31, episode. (Rocky Carroll remains in the opening credits.)

That means, while “it feels really wrong,” as Knight (Katrina Law) puts it, observing the chaos of Fleet Week just one week after Vance’s funeral, the team does have to solve a case and begin packing up Vance’s office. Warning: Spoilers for NCIS Season 23 Episode 14 ahead!

Unsurprisingly with how TV shows work, the team can relate to the case a bit — the only important part really is that a sailor thinks, for some time, that he may have murdered his best friend after being poisoned (he didn’t). He mourns just as the team grieves their own loss. And as Parker (Gary Cole) tells the sailor, “Your friend’s not coming back, he’s gone, but you’re still here, so you have the opportunity to try to help other sailors who might be exposed to this toxin, and I think Kyle would want that.” Vance, too, would want the team to continue doing what they do best.

The agents are very much still mourning. Not even a week out from the funeral, and “it’s like we haven’t had a chance to process anything,” McGee (Sean Murray) points out. But the world moves on, Parker says, and that includes having to clear out Vance’s office by Friday, even though the interim director hasn’t even stepped foot in the building. They also expect there to be five more interim directors before someone permanent comes in.

It’s because of that loss that Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) is offended by the drunk sailors of Fleet Week calling them the “fun police.” Knight gets it: “Vance sacrificed everything so we could keep doing this job.”

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Parker, in particular, is hit hard by the loss; he and Vance were, after all, close and did just clear the air after tension for most of the season. It’s also falling on him to talk to the vice admiral’s communications advisor during the course of the case, in Vance’s assistant’s office, with the interim director not exactly hands on. Once alone, Parker looks to the closed door to Vance’s office and remarks, “You made it look easy, Leon.”

He also doesn’t react well when he thinks boxes in the hallway are Vance’s belongings; they’re actually their case files being returned from Army CID. “I don’t know how I am,” he admits to Knight. “I haven’t had a second to think about it.” He thinks that he “should be an expert in handling loss after this last year,” but she points out that’s not how it works.

Kasie (Diona Reasonover), meanwhile, doesn’t even want to think about new equipment in her lab since the software upgrade was the last thing Vance had approved for her. Torres gets it, nothing, “We all honor him in different ways.”

In the final scene, Parker, McGee, Torres, Knight, Palmer (Brian Dietzen), and Kasie gather in Vance’s office, not to pack just yet, but instead to toast with what the late director kept in his desk for special occasions (and something non-alcoholic for Torres). Parker also puts out an extra glass, which McGee moves in front of Vance’s empty chair as they gather around the desk.

“The last couple weeks, been nonstop, one thing after the other, just seems like the world would like nothing more than just to move on, to forget,” Parker says, “But the only way I know how to get through this is by remembering him and there’s no one I would rather remember him with than all of you guys. So, to Leon.” With that, they all raise their glasses to Vance’s empty chair, and the episode ends on the glass on the desk in front of it.

What did you think of how NCIS began to mourn Vance? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS