NCIS season 23 episode 2 closed the Carla Marino chapter, but opened many questions about Agent Parker's future. The new episode sets one record straight: Parker is still the team leader, and the team is back to business as usual.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from the NCIS season 23 episode 3
That doesn’t mean NCIS season 23 is back to ordinary office days. This episode zeroes in on Agent Torres, who seems to have lost his cool over an old frenemy. But let's take this one step at a time.
NCIS season 23 episode 3 brings back Agent Sawyer
The team is back working on a new murder case, only to have an old face from season 22 show up: Agent Dale Sawyer. Turns out Sawyer's night shift, the 'B-team', is working a blackmail case that might be connected. He gets on the A-team's nerves, but he might be onto something.
It seems like the dead petty officer had a secret girlfriend, the source of his money problems. Only that's just a front. He was being blackmailed. Enter Agent Sawyer, again.
Vance claims he's holding no grudges against Parker, but the tension and the fact that the director assigns both cases to Sawyer's team suggest otherwise. Nick and Jess work the night shift with Sawyer, who's short-staffed. That's when the real fun begins.
NCIS season 23 brings us a few Halloween chills
Maybe it's just Sawyer messing with Torres's head, but the NCIS HQ seems to have its personal ghost, Henry. Not the scary kind, though, more like Casper. He only flickers some lights, making his presence known.
The creepy stuff comes in when the team finds the woman who's been luring young Navy officers in bars to blackmail them with naked, compromising pictures. Her name is Olga, and she runs a spooky fortune-teller shop. When Torres, Knight and Sawyer get there, a client of Olga's dies the same gruesome way as their petty officer.
The man — who turns out to be one of the blackmailers paying Olga to help — says the devil is killing him right before he collapses. Minutes after this, Olga falls too, to a coma, not death.
Back at HQ, Nick gets similar symptoms but dismisses them as a headache, while Sawyer jokes that the devil must have jumped into him after he left Olga's body. Joke's on him. During the stakeout Jess and Sawyer are sent on, Nick attacks Sawyer, screaming, "Get away from her!"
But the Halloween vibes end there. The truth is that all victims, including Torres, suffered cerebral trauma from low-frequency sound waves. And the team tracks down Arben's partner and retrieves the military weapon that caused that damage.
NCIS season 23 episode 3 clears up the potential Torres-Knight romance
There's tension between Nick Torres and Jess Knight from the beginning of the episode, where Jess beams about being offered a major role training the NCIS Elite Task Force. And we finally have a leftover question answered: this was why Vance wanted to talk to Torres alone in the previous episode. Nick was offered the position first.
Working so close to Agent Sawyer and seeing Jess bond with him doesn't help the matter. Nick is obviously jealous that Sawyer's stealing her away. He's not entirely wrong, either. Knight and Sawyer bond during the stakeout, and Sawyer even admits he's 'acting out' because he's insecure around them, the 'A-team'. Maybe he and Torres aren't so different after all.
Meanwhile, Torres confides in Jimmy in the morgue, saying he has no romantic feelings for Jess, right after she hints to Sawyer that she might. But the episode's ending sets that record straight. Nick and Jess seem to have settled on their professional relationship and their friendship, and not letting anyone come between them.
NCIS wouldn’t be NCIS without a few lingering questions. We still don't know what the discrepancy in Agent Parker's mother's death certificate is. Nor who that mysterious lipstick from his house belongs to.
How do these threads tie together? Hopefully, we'll find out soon enough.
NCIS airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.
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