Special Agent Sam Hanna returns to New York to investigate the death of his friend's son in the season 1 premiere of NCIS: New York.
The episode opens with Sam on a mission in Egypt. As he sips a drink at a fancy hotel bar, a group of men and their companions are loudly enjoying themselves.
While Sam closely observes the group, his phone rings off the hook. It's Sam's friend, Jake Holloway (Stanley Andrew Jackson), desperately trying to reach the NCIS agent. Unfortunately, Sam doesn't have time to answer, so he silences his phone.
Eventually, the men get up and leave, and Sam springs into action. Before the waiter can finish collecting the cups, Sam swoops in and subtly snags one of the men's dirty glasses. After taking the cup back to his hotel room, Sam uses high-quality tech to copy the man's fingerprint.
It's like out a scene out of Mission: Impossible!
After changing clothes, Sam then sneaks into his target's room with a silver briefcase and makes an exchange. But just when it looks like he's succeeded, the men from downstairs barge into the hotel room and attack Sam. Thankfully, he wins and escapes into a vehicle. While on his way home, Sam finally returns Jake's call, but it's too late.
Jake is dead.
Welcome to New York
Upon hearing of Jake's death, Sam immediately travels to New York to investigate.
NCIS will handle the investigation of Jake's death since he was a Navy reservist, so Sam reaches out to Robyn Wells (Jennifer Beals) from the New York station office to offer his assistance. As a result, he is paired up with Agent Nick Schaeffer (Scott Caan), who is directly overseeing the case.
Nick introduces Sam to the rest of the team: the boy scout, Agent Wyatt "Milkman" Hill (Shane Harper), the baddie, Agent Addison "Addy" Ross (Jacqueline Byers), and the tech genius with a criminal history, Sean Sullivan (Devin Druid).
The team's first order of business? Visit Jake's widow, Janice. She's pregnant with the couple's first child and is protective of her family. Sam is empathetic, but Nick thinks she's hiding something.
While Addy, Wyatt, and Sean focus on identifying the suspect, Sam and Nick visit Jake's first mate, Dave. Dave points the agents to a lockbox Jake kept, which they find contains $7,000.
Unfortunately for Sam, it now looks like Jake may have been dirty.
Back at the office, Sam defends Jake to Robyn and Nick. He makes it clear that Jake was a good man with a good life, who wouldn't have done anything dirty. However, Robyn and Nick encourage Sam to follow the evidence and at least consider that Jake did something he shouldn't have.
Right then, Sean says he's found something. The man seen in the area where Jake died was wearing a hat belonging to a minor league baseball team called the Norfolk Eels. Jake's first mate, Dave, is from Norfolk, Virginia.
It's time to call him in.
You've been catfished
While Sam interrogates Dave about his involvement in Jake's death, Robyn and Nick discuss adding the NCIS agent to their team. Nick thinks Sam would be a great addition, but Robyn doesn't think the agent would want to return to active duty. She asked before, and Sam seemed content where he was.
Nick says to let him try.
Meanwhile, a boat's security footage shows a kill team jumping off a stranded vessel. Facial recognition identifies one of the men as Ian Chilten, a British national and former member of the SAS who was kicked out for executing a translator in Kabul. Now, he's a mercenary for hire.
Nick returns to the interrogation to press Dave for more information, and the first mate reveals he was the one who framed Jake. The mercenaries made him smuggle them into the country and threatened to kill his girlfriend if he didn't help them.
The only problem? Dave's girlfriend doesn't exist. He'd been catfished.
Sean finds parking tickets in Dave's name for a van currently sitting outside a bar in Bushwick. While the team investigates the bar, the mercenaries kidnap a girl named Alina Azarin, daughter of Daniel Azarin, a mining oligarch from Russia. Azarin is locked in a battle with Pavel Dronen over mining rights. Dronen hired Chilten to kidnap Alina to force her father to relinquish his claim.
The team shoots Chilten and decides to intercept his men when they arrive at the bar. They have the element of surprise on their side, but things get dicey when Nick gets pinned down with a knife to his neck. Thankfully, Sam comes to his rescue and kills the mercenary before he kills Nick.
Sam Hanna comes home
After clearing Jake's name and solving his murder, Sam goes to visit Janice and gives her the ceremonial flag reserved for those killed in the line of duty. The two share a hug while Nick looks on.
Afterwards, Nick takes Sam to the Brooklyn Bridge to look at the New York City skyline. He tells Sam that he would be a great addition to the team and that they could use his expertise. Sam admits he loves the city but feels like a stranger now after being away for so long.
Nick tells Sam that he knows what it's like to run away from home. He comes from a family of cops, but he didn't want to be one, so he went into finance. But he lost everything because he ran from himself, his family, and his responsibilities. He tells Sam that only after he came home to New York did things fall into place.
"So stop, enough already. Come home."
Sam thinks Nick is overselling it, but agrees to join the team and see how things go.
The two drive off into the sunset, while "New York" by Alicia Keys plays in the background.
NCIS: New York airs every Tuesday at 9/8c on CBS.
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