[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS Season 21 Episode 7 “A Thousand Yards.”]
For a milestone as main because the franchise’s 1,000th episode, NCIS pulls out all of the stops, from visitor stars (LA‘s Daniela Ruah as Kensi! Hawai’i‘s Vanessa Lachey as Jane! Joe Spano as Fornell!) to Easter eggs (like connections within the case to useless characters like Tom Morrow and Kate Todd and all of it linking again to the mothership’s very first investigation). It additionally begins off by placing one of many company’s personal within the hospital.
Whereas visiting his late spouse’s grave after which having a clumsy, tense dialog together with his son, Jared (Spence Moore II), Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) is shot by a sniper. Whereas Carroll, talking with TV Insider for our weekly aftershow, NCIS: Case Closed, by no means frightened about being killed off, he does recall of the preliminary dialog he had with the episode’s author, Christopher J. Waild, that “he by no means talked about something about Vance being shot or close to dying. It was like, ‘What do you consider bringing Vance’s son again?’ And I stated, ‘Oh, that’s an important concept.’ So once I learn how he’s introduced again and the rationale that they reconnect, I used to be like, ‘He disregarded that little half about Vance getting shot in a cemetery.’”
It’s as a result of Vance is shot and Jared will get at take a look at NCIS and what these brokers do—and proceed to do, at the same time as they’re being threatened—that father and son are in a a lot better place by the tip of the episode. Jared “might not have gotten there in any respect,” Carroll says. “I believe he held plenty of resentment towards the truth that his mother was killed violently and he blamed that on NCIS.” Additionally, Vance’s daughter can also be now an NCIS agent and has seen the dangers of the job.
“It’s not till you understand that you might lose that particular person that you simply’re in a position to put apart no matter your grievances are with one another and understand that we’re simply fortunate to have one other day collectively that I can say to you the way a lot I do love you and the way a lot I miss being linked to you,” provides Carroll. “I hope that’s what this episode sheds mild on.”
The episode is full of Easter eggs, together with that the particular person they’re after is the daughter of the perp from the very first NCIS (by which Spano visitor starred), which permits for fairly a couple of callbacks. Carroll had but to observe the episode and admits, “I must see it the way in which you’ve seen it to [pick out the Easter eggs]. It’s humorous when someone stops me and says, ‘Hey, I really like that episode when such and such occurs,’ as a result of I can proudly say we’ve completed so many episodes and I’ve been part of I believe greater than 300 of them myself, is that there’s not plenty of downtime between if you full an episode and if you begin the subsequent one which you must undergo your psychological pc and delete the file so you possibly can retailer all the brand new stuff. I wouldn’t do very effectively in an Easter egg hunt.”
Whereas Vance is recovering within the hospital on this episode, he names McGee (Sean Murray) interim director, one thing that looks as if a straightforward determination, and sure, “many, a few years from now,” the once-probie, now senior discipline agent is his decide to take over for him. “Right here’s hoping that I can observe within the late David McCallum‘s footsteps and in my 80s nonetheless be a viable half and a working actor,” Carroll says. Vance has “seen [McGee’s] evolution, he’s seen his progress, versus being type of the foil to DiNozzo [Michael Weatherly], he is aware of that there’s a stage of maturity that he possesses. And through the years he’s grown. He’s a husband, he’s a father, he understands accountability extra. I believe Vance sees plenty of himself in McGee—household man, children.”
However Vance isn’t going wherever anytime quickly. Actually, whereas his damage was a severe one, he’ll be again at work sooner quite than later.
Watch the video above for the total interview as Carroll talks about filming that opening scene, that nice ending with Vance’s speech about what the badge means over a franchise montage, what he enjoys most about who Vance is now versus when he first joined the present, directing NCIS (together with an episode earlier this season), and way more.
