The NCIS season 23 finale focused on legacy, following your own path, and betrayal before ending in a shocking cliffhanger that will leave fans talking for weeks. What happened when the team investigated a bombing in an alley that was connected to a previous coffee shop bombing that Director Vance’s daughter witnessed?
NCIS begins to investigate a bombing that is eerily familiar to a coffee shop bombing that took place a year ago. Director Leon Vance’s daughter, Kayla, had just been in the coffee shop when it exploded. Despite the FBI finding it was the work of a lone wolf, she felt some things didn’t add up.
How did Kayla Vance play a role in the investigation?
The team is investigating a suspect, who was first thought to be a petty officer. However, they determined the real petty officer was currently alive, and the bomber was a man named Brian Wallis. They also discover his vehicle has multiple backpacks inside that could contain more bombs.
McGee spoke with the original bomber’s father, who told him his son spoke with some friends on a site called Archive. It allowed young men to find each other and air their grievances with one another. However, when they managed to determine where the website was broadcasting from, they discovered Kayla was part of the site.
Kayla had built a network that worked to infiltrate extremist chatrooms. This means that most likely, the bomber had discovered who they were and was trying to stop them. She tells the team that the young men in the Archive chats were discussing their anger towards corporations.
Agent Jessica Knight and Kayla are staking out a coffee shop to figure out where the main suspect is located. After they both talk about living under their fathers’ legacy, they continue to try to determine who might be using the wifi to log into the Archive website. However, they are stopped by none other than former Deputy Director Gabriel LaRoche.
LaRoche is the new associate attorney general, and he claims Kayla can’t be part of the investigation because her group’s work was using criminal money. Kayla maintains she vetted every grant, so she is unsure what happened, but now she has been sidelined. Kasie then found evidence a slush fund was used and Director Vance accessed it before he died.
However, it turns out LaRoche thinks Vance accessed dirty money in order to find Kayla’s organization. Before anything else can be said, Parker stops the interrogation, but the effect is instant. Kayla worries that her dad’s legacy will be destroyed, and she admits she had been planning to leave NCIS before his death.
When Kayla finds the book in evidence that was found in the bomber’s vehicle, she remembers that the first bomber was reading it in the coffee shop. Just as she leaves the room, Kasie comes in to tell Jessica that evidence led them to Hank Hammersmith, the father of the previous bomber. He is apparently picking up where his son left off and planning more bombings. However, that isn’t the full story.
The book author radicalized his readers in order to make a profit. Hammersmith realized he was the one who was the reason his son did what he did, and he is prepared to go after him. The team finds out he is at a sci-fi convention, but Hammersmith is already in his car, and Kayla has arrived to stop him.
Luckily, Kasie found the evidence needed to arrest the author, and Kayla talked Hammersmith down enough for him to surrender. Later, Kayla went to the gym, where she used to spar with her dad, when Knight summoned her. She hadn’t been back there since, and she told her that she was still torn between her organization, which had to be rebuilt legitimately, and NCIS.
She opened her old gym locker, discovering a note her dad had left. It told her to follow her own path, and he had included a discharge form so she could decide whether she wanted to submit it. In addition to Kayla taking ownership of her own future, Director Vance’s legacy was secure.
Parker spoke with Gabriel, telling him that Vance was likely looking out for Kayla’s organization and discovered the slush fund but died before he could warn Kayla. Gabriel was prepared to protect Leon’s legacy, but apparently, he was eyeing the director's position. We have a feeling Parker is not about to let that happen.
A shocking cliffhanger could lead to conflict for McGee with Torres
The episode also saw the return of McGee’s son, Mateo, who wanted to see about doing an internship with NCIS. However, he eventually told McGee he changed his mind. But when Torres spoke with Jimmy, he learned that, apparently, Mateo used a workstation to fill out an application.
There was no application, though, and Torres went to confront Mateo. But Mateo was trying not to talk to him, and he had a gun in his waistband. He claimed someone could be watching them and told Torres to back off. The episode ended with a loud gunshot in the night.
What is Mateo up to, and was either of them shot? This was a surprising end to the season, and we have to wonder what the ramifications are for not just Mateo and McGee but also McGee and Torres, depending on what happens.
Despite how things ended, this was a beautiful and surprising way to end the finale. It showed that Director Vance's legacy could not be tainted, and he was not just a director but a father trying to help his daughter in any way he could. Rocky Carrol graced our screens again in flashbacks and in a moment where Kayla saw her father's ghost looking at her with a proud smile. It was a fitting end to the season, one that had such a stark contrast to the cliffhanger scene later on.
Until Season 24 comes back to CBS for the 2026 television season, you can find previous episodes streaming on Paramount+.
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