What happens when the most-watched drama on broadcast television (for four years in a row) ends its latest season finale with an echo of a loud gunshot airing in the background while some of the most compelling characters are engrossed in a heated skirmish? You don’t know who’s dead or whether there is anyone dead; all you can see is the black screen with the credits rolling, staring right back at you, mocking with a sardonic smile.
Nothing is more tormenting than to realize that this was the last episode of the latest season of your favorite crime drama, and you will have to wait, perhaps, a whole another year to know what has happened.
You must have gone through the same torment when NCIS Season 20 ended with a major cliffhanger on CBS. The black screen left your mind with a maelstrom of questions like Will Torres get his revenge? Will he identify himself as a cold-blooded murderer? An evolution for a character is conventional, but a devolution? We need to know the backstory.
But to know the backstory, you will have to wait for a while. NCIS Season 21 will not be back on your screens for a while, which is quite obvious. But that does not mean that we cannot spend some time speculating what could happen next; (well, it’s one of our favorite guilty pleasures!)
Here’s what we know so far.
What can we expect to happen in NCIS Season 21?
Over the course of 22 episodes of NCIS season 20, the viewers caught a glimpse of exorbitant changes occurring in this coterie of government agents. Be it Jimmy’s public confession of his love for Knight or Torres’ going undercover to dig up the secrets concerning the supposed Russian terrorist attack.
Considering the cliffhanger ending of NCIS season 20, fans are perched on the edge of their seats, waiting to know more about season 21. At the time of writing this article, however, it’s unclear what tangent the upcoming season will possibly take.
While Torres is successfully able to make his way out of the prison, he comes across an older man communicating with another prisoner who unravels that he was incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. Making his way to the older man’s residence, Torres can trace his past with him so much so that he wants to kill him.
The upcoming season will indubitably pick up from this moment and underscore Torres’ relationship with the older man. Possibly, the new season might even feature flashbacks unraveling how deep their relationship goes and flesh out the identity of this senile man.
However, a lot of viewers couldn’t hold their horses back, so they went on Reddit and poured out their thoughts on this plausible connection. One Reddit user wrote, “I’m guessing an ex-boyfriend of [Torres]’ mom that likely stole mom’s life savings and ran … for Nick to want to kill him, he had to have done something more serious than that.”
Corroborating with this, another added, “I think the guy dated Torres’ mom, screwed her financially and left, or framed Torres the same way he’s doing for his current victim.”
Who are the expected cast members of NCIS Season 21?
Considering how things went down in the NCIS season 20 finale, we expect the following cast members to reprise their respective roles in the upcoming installment of the crime drama as well:
Sean Murray as Special Agent Timothy McGee
Wilmer Valderrama as Special Agent Nick Torres
Katrina Law as Special Agent Jessica Knight
Gary Cole as Supervisory Special Agent Alden Parker
Brian Dietzen as Chief Medical Examiner Dr Jimmy Palmer
Diona Reasonover as Forensic Specialist Kasie Hines
Rocky Carroll as NCIS Director Leon Vance
David McCallum, as former Chief Medical Examiner Dr Donald “Ducky” Mallard
The season 20 finale also sets the stage for Al Sapienza to play a critical role in season 21. Debuted as an unknown older man in the premiered installment who begins making friends with a young prisoner at the jail Torres was undercover at, Sapienza will uncertainly grab the attention of the viewers in the upcoming season.
When was NCIS officially renewed for season 21?
On February 21, NCIS received an official renewal for season 21. The announcement was made on Instagram, along with releasing a video montage that said that the show will return for the 2023-2024 television season.
When will NCIS Season 21 premiere on CBS?
The new season of this crime drama is not expected to premiere before September, primarily because the series is touted to be a fall show. It is expected to air on Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, followed by the new episodes of its spin-off, NCIS: Hawaii.
Owing to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, we don’t expect the show to premiere in September 2023 at all since it has delayed the production schedules of a plethora of critically-acclaimed television shows and shows belonging to several OTT platforms. The strike is expected to continue until the demands of the writers are met or a fair deal has been deliberated. Meanwhile, expect a paradigm shift in the 2023-2024 primetime schedule led by the CBS network.
Consequently, NCIS season 21 is expected to premiere sometime in mid-2024. George Cheeks, President and CEO of CBS and Chief Content Officer, George Cheeks elaborated on the possibility of delays in the fall 2023 lineup that was not inclusive of the potential impact of the writers’ strike during a keynote at Banff led by Deadline’s Peter White.
Shedding light on the revised CBS fall scheduling plans, Cheeks admitted that it will be “very reality-heavy.” Not only that, but when asked to acknowledge and explicate the studio’s negotiations with the hotshot Hollywood guild and the ongoing WGA strike, he unraveled that they have recently agreed upon a tentative deal with the DGA, which he says is “helpful.”
