NCIS Season 16 premiere recap: Can the team find Director Vance?

NCIS Season 16 is finally here and we get to find out where Director Vance is and why Hakim was so focused on kidnapping him. Would the team be able to find him in time?

For the whole summer we’ve been concerned about one person in NCIS; Director Vance. We have literally checked in for clues as to whether the team would find him in time, wondering whether we were going to lose him. Even seeing Rocky Carroll’s name pop up in the credits wasn’t enough to settle fears.

However, after a short Supernatural recurring actor showed up, we got straight into the NCIS Season 16 premiere. Would Vance be found in time?

Initially, we start with Vance running from his capturers. This is straight after the Season 15 finale and just we hope he’ll get away, he’s knocked out and returned to the compound. Hakim is ready to torture Vance for the deaths of his brothers but Hakim’s mother doesn’t think he should. Maybe they can get Vance on their side.

Flash forward four weeks

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After that revelation, we head to HQ, where Gibbs isn’t dealing well with being Acting Director. He just wants to find Vance and has even sent Torres to Afghanistan following a lead. It turns out the lead was a bad one.

The search comes to a head when Vance robs a bank and steals Hakim’s money. Then he appears in a terrorist video with a message. Fortunately, Vance has managed to get a message to the team through blinking–and it’s Kasie who figures out the blinks are on specific words. While the individual words make no sense in order, Gibbs realizes they spell a word: Kayla.

Sure enough, Hakim was threatening Vance with Kayla’s death. Just as it looks like she’s going to be killed, Gibbs and co. show up and take to shooter down.

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Vance gets help on the inside

With that plan failed and Vance now refusing to give access codes to a reactor, Hakim leaves Vance with one of his men. Only it turns out the man is CIA and undercover. He’s tried to get a message to his handler but now needs Vance to get the message out.

That message is a warning about the potential attack on the reactor. NCIS gets the message to the reactor to start security protocols, which is just what Hakim wanted. That CIA agent wasn’t an agent at all! The agent had been killed by Hakim’s men.

Hakim needed Vance to get the reactor to set up the security commands. There’s a Trojan Horse within them that sets on all the lockdown procedures. Fortunately, the guy who had tried to kill Kayla had connections to a lava lamp company and Gibbs figured that the code for the cyber attack was being set off from there.

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With the attack thwarted, Hakim is angry. He turns to Vance and Jack to torture them. Wait, Jack?

Jack is the cuckoo

Throughout the episode, there’s a mention of a cuckoo and only Gibbs knows what it means. Well, Gibbs and Jack.

It turns out that Jack suspected the ambassador who had protected Hakim before as one of Hakim’s people. When the ambassador slips up by saying what was in the bank vault (which was never disclosed), Jack confronts her. Of course, the ambassador was ready and Jack is taken to Hakim.

Since Gibbs already knew of Jack’s intention, Jack was being tracked the whole time. At the very end, NCIS storms the house and arrests everyone.

The kicker for Hakim is that he’s proven to be the monster. Jack shares that Hakim will get three meals a day and protection during his trial instead of heading to a black ops sight. Jack and Vance are saved and NCIS fans can breathe easily for now.

All this brings closure for Jack, as she’s finally able to let go of the past with her torturer behind bars.

What did you think about Hakim’s plans? What did you think about how Vance was saved? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

NCIS Season 16 continues on Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.