NCIS celebrates its 500th episode, a milestone worth recognizing and honoring, with one of its most shocking, heartbreaking installments yet. And, like it has done with previous milestones, it pulls it off and delivers an outstanding episode. When executive producer Steven D. Binder told TV Insider it would change everything and it would be a “traumatic experience for everybody,” he wasn’t exaggerating. Not everyone makes it to Episode 501.
Despite Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) fighting for the agency, NCIS is shut down and folded into Army CID, and that means the team needs new jobs — and, in the case of one, retires. But Vance’s fight isn’t done yet, and TV Insider spoke with Rocky Carroll, who delivers one of his best performances of the series in this episode, about just how far his character goes to protect and fight for his people. Warning: Spoilers for NCIS Episode 500 (Season 23 Episode 13) ahead!
McGee (Sean Murray) and Knight (Katrina Law) take positions at CID, while Parker (Gary Cole) and Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) refuse theirs and retire and join DEA, respectively. It’s while Torres is undercover that Billy Fuentes (Austin Marques returns!), whom Gibbs (Mark Harmon) helped build a treehouse in “Hung Out to Dry” after his father was killed, approaches him: His sister is accused of killing a Navy sailor and insists she didn’t do it. The team, of course, reunites to work the case, which eventually leads to a weapons smuggling operation involving none other than Nexus’ El Padre and the dirty deputy attorney general, Brett Gaines, who abused his wife, both of whom they busted last season, and the CID director. Also involved? CID Agent Thompson, first a thorn in their side then seemingly helpful … until Vance finds a bomb in NCIS’ evidence garage to destroy everything incriminating. He defuses it, then Thompson shoots him, but Vance was wearing a vest…
But… the episode is framed as a mystery man (Adhir Kalyan) questioning Vance about the case, accusing his agents of killing Thompson. First, Vance thinks he’s CID, then he thinks he’s working for the smugglers … and then he realizes this man knows something that Palmer (Brian Dietzen) told him that he didn’t share. “You were one of the best agents I ever met,” the man says, and Vance realizes that the “Clear!” he keeps hearing isn’t agents clearing the floor but rather Palmer trying to save his life because he wasn’t wearing a vest. “No, old friend, you weren’t,” the man confirms before revealing himself to be Ducky, the younger version played by Adam Campbell! (Hence the duck dragon graffiti at the beginning of the episode!) Yes, Vance dies, and Ducky is his Angel of Death. Carroll is leaving NCIS after 18 seasons, having debuted in Season 5 Episode 14 “Internal Affairs.”
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It was not his choice to leave, Carroll tells us in the video interview above. Binder visited his trailer one day and told him the story for the 500th. “Well, the agency, NCIS, as we know it, is in deep peril and is in danger of becoming extinct, of folding over into another agency because there’s a nefarious character working behind the scenes to sabotage the agency. And Director Vance figures out who it is. And in the process of saving the agency, he loses his life. It’s a great story. You want to hear more?” the star recalls Binder saying. “And I thought, ‘Wait, let’s go back a minute. Back up to the part where you say in saving the agency, he loses his life.’”
Carroll continues, “It was basically presented to me that the studio and the network wanted to do something really spectacular, really big, and something that would really send shockwaves through the NCIS fan base and the community. And I guess the dramaturge and the director in me, after 23 years, you’ve pretty much told every story, and a lot of them you’ve told more than once. So, when it was laid all out, and when they did tell me the whole plot line and the story, my first thought, completely candidly, was, ‘It’s actually a terrific story.’” (Binder explains the decision here.)
Carroll notes that he hadn’t expected to play Vance for 18 seasons, admitting that he thought he’d joined at “the tail end,” and the series might last through Season 8. “It’s been quite a run. And I was so proud of the episode,” he adds. “There’s too much good to be depressed about it.”
Speaking of good is Campbell’s return as young Ducky. “I figured if I showed my real face too soon, it would’ve given up the game,” he explains in the episode. He hoped a familiar adversary would make the transition a little easier. Carroll notes that was the first time he’d worked with the actor, since he’d previously been in flashbacks.
But Vance wonders, emotional, “I gave up most of my life for this agency, and apparently my actual life, but for what? NCIS is gone. And now my children have lost both of their parents. So, without putting too fine a point on it, this sucks.” Ducky agrees, “and so it goes. Fate rarely bothers to consult us with its plans. However, in your case, dear boy, I actually have good news.”
CBS
The only reason NCIS was shut down was because the CID director cheated and fudged the budget numbers. After Vance is killed, his team arrests the director, the charges are dropped against Billy’s sister, and the shutdown of NCIS is reversed. Parker comes out of retirement when the team returns to work. “You didn’t give up your life for nothing, dear boy. You saved your agency. Your legacy will live on,” Ducky assures Vance. It’s bittersweet. Carroll calls that “one of the most powerful” moments.
When it’s time for Vance to go, after a poignant montage of him through the years with everyone — including Gibbs, Tony (Michael Weatherly), Ziva (Cote de Pablo), Ducky (David McCallum), McGee, Abby (Pauley Perrette), Bishop (Emily Wickersham), and the current team — followed by his wife’s death then him with his kids as they grew up, he walks into the light, where his wife’s voice greets him.
It’s a very emotional scene, and because of the nature of it, Carroll was able to lean into it. “It wasn’t like, ‘Well, you’re emotional, but you can’t be that way for the episode,’” he says. “If this had happened in my third season as Director Vance, it would’ve been a much different feeling. But after 18, after my character’s lived two lifetimes basically in TV world, and I said, ‘To play a character for 18 seasons on one of the most-watched TV shows in the world is the equivalent to having lived to be 105.’ In my world, it’s like if you go to a memorial service for somebody who lived to be 105, your thought is, yeah, I’m sorry he’s gone, but I mean, geez, he lived to be 105. That’s kind of how I feel about my character.”
As for the montage, he did participate in brainstorming which scenes would go into that and shares that he remembered some of the episode titles. “I remember watching that and thinking to myself, ‘Man, this was a huge part of my life. I spent almost two decades as this character. I was in my 40s when I started on this show. It was a real experience, a great visceral experience, and I’m glad I’m able to do it at this stage in my life, that it didn’t happen at the end of my life, that it’s the end of this character’s life. But as far as, for me as an actor, to have come full circle and completed this character and have spent close to two decades playing it, it’s a great accomplishment.”
Carroll shares that Binder told him, “I want this episode to be a love letter to your character.” And for the actor, “I think that’s kind of what it turned out to be.”
Watch the full video interview above for more from Rocky Carroll about this heartbreaking episode, Vance’s death, and his exit.
NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS
