There is little that we know about Alden Parker in NCIS. What we do know is relatively superficial, especially when it comes to just the knowledge that he was in juvie. Is it possible that this is connected to the child he saw during his near-death experience?
We know Parker is sure to return as the head to the team in NCIS Season 22. This means we should have some sort of update on how he’s doing following his near-death experience. We need to know who the child was, and it’s time for Parker to face his past.
NCIS already knows the identity of the child
The show writers already know who Lily is to Parker. A lot of fans speculate that Lily is Parker’s sister, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet. Based on the flashbacks, we know that Parker was a child at the same time as Lily.
This seems a little too obvious, especially when we consider what showrunner Steven D. Binder says about this child. Apparently, we don’t have enough to put the whole mystery together just yet. Maybe she was just a child on the ship that Parker made friends with and something happened to her because of him and their playing.
"Well, we [the writers] do, but the audience definitely doesn’t. No, there are some things [to be revealed] that will be more meaningful after the fact once you look back, some little things that are planned. But there is nothing that you’d be able to put together with what you’ve been shown so far."
Will we finally know why Parker doesn’t like ships?
We know that Parker doesn’t like ships. That has been mentioned in the series, but it was something so small that it was brushed off. After all, people have preferences on the way to travel, even if they’ve never tried that method of transport before. For all we knew, Parker got seasick so likes to stay on land.
Well, it looks like his dislike of ships comes down to something that happened in his past. Near-death experiences can unlock traumatic events of the past. Parker may have turned to hallucinating Lily as a way to gain absolution before his own death. It suggests that he was somewhat responsible for Lily’s death. The question is whether he did it, or whether he was just a child and was incapable of helping her in her time of need.
Hopefully, NCIS Season 22 will give us a look into Parker’s past more. We need to know more about this character and his history. Those flashbacks during the near-death experience were certainly a way to bring up the past, and now the writers need to use that to their advantage.