NCIS season 20 episode 21 recap: The Russian spy arc

NCIS season 20 episode 21 brought back the long-running arc involving Russian spies who had infiltrated into the United States. While the team focused on finding out who broke into the National Archives and killed a security guard, Jimmy also had to deal with the fallout of accidentally telling Jessica he loved her in the squad room.

If you recall, we met several characters who appeared to be related to cases the team covered. In actuality, they were Russian spies who had unknown reasons for being in the States. Now, the team gets closer to finding out what has been happening.

When they figure out that someone broke into the National Archives to steal a file, the team finds that the logs showed a Senator involved in one of their cases was the one who visited. In fact, she is in a relationship with Parker at this time.

However, she insists she did not go to the Archives and security footage shows an unknown man had somehow uploaded her eyes digitally after getting a photo taken with her. This also ends up messing up the relationship Parker has with her since he did, in fact, have to question her as a suspect. Yikes!

NCIS season 20 episode 21 brings back the Russian spy arc

Their suspect is a man named Yuri Valkov, whose plan was to find a file on a Russian defector named Sokolov. The plan was to torture and kill him, but there’s more to the story.

After one of of the spies, Nate Billings, kills himself in his cell, the team discovers that the other two spies they met had been killed upon arriving in Moscow. With the fourth one in danger, McGee and Parker convince her to come back to NCIS with them. She’s the one who gave them the information on Yuri, but she only knows part of the puzzle.

With the help of Ducky, the team learns Sokolov had prepared a doomsday device and this is what Yuri tortured and killed him for. Now, the team must figure out how to stop Yuri from harming more people.

In addition to the main storyline, we also saw Jimmy in panic mode after accidentally telling Jessica he loved her. Despite this hiccup, Jessica eventually does reveal that she loves him as well.

While public displays of affection are not something neither of them care for, especially at work, it was still a sweet moment between the couple. We love seeing them together and hope it stays that way!

The season finale of NCIS will air on May 22 and we’re looking forward to it!

Let us know in the comments what you thought of NCIS season 20 episode 21. Catch up on the episode if you missed it on Paramount+.