NCIS Season 23 Finale Twist: Did Another Fan Favorite Just Get Killed Off?

NCIS closed out season 23 with a ghost story, a bureaucracy knife fight, and a cut-to-black gunshot. Classic Tuesday. Spoilers for episode 20 from here on out.

Vance returns, kind of

Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll), who was killed earlier this season in episode 13, showed up throughout the finale in flashbacks tied to a bombing that has been haunting his daughter, NCIS agent Kayla Vance (Naomi Grace).

• 12 months ago: Vance phoned Kayla to check on work. Seconds later, a coffee shop she had just left exploded.
• 1 month later: Kayla boxed with her dad, still rattled. She told him she was convinced the suicide bomber was not a lone wolf and that she planned to prove it.
• Present day: With the team still operating without a director after Vance’s death, they found another backpack bomber mirroring the coffee shop attack — and six more loaded backpacks in the dead suspect’s car. Score one for Kayla’s instincts.

The case brought the team back into Kayla’s orbit. She has been running a not-exactly-sanctioned task force that tracks online radicalization before kids get groomed into would-be bombers. The culprit this time? A science fiction author who was manipulating teenagers to carry out attacks so he could cash in off the corporations they targeted. Yes, that is every bit as gross as it sounds — and also the kind of twist this show loves.

Kayla gets benched, then vindicated

Just as Kayla tried to work alongside her dad’s old crew — Parker (Gary Cole), Torres (Wilmer Valderrama), and Knight (Katrina Law) — former NCIS Deputy Director Gabriel LaRoche (Seamus Dever), now the US Associate Attorney General, yanked her off the field. The accusation: she used dirty money to bankroll her off-books team.

The truth was messier and a little heartbreaking. The team traced the funds and realized Vance was the last person to handle the tainted cash because he had found it and was trying to warn Kayla in the days before he was killed. Translation: neither Vance nor Kayla was dirty. LaRoche, meanwhile, all but said the quiet part out loud — clearing Vance’s name would look great on the resume if he wants back in at NCIS, ideally in Vance’s chair.

Kayla also discovered a letter in her boxing locker from her father. He had signed discharge papers giving her permission to leave NCIS if she wanted to pursue her side project full-time. It was his way of saying: choose your path, I am good with it. The episode gave us one last, wordless image of Vance in the boxing ring, proud dad mode fully activated.

Meanwhile: McGee’s son and a very messy cliffhanger

On the personal front, Special Agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) is still getting to know his son, Mateo Garcia (Patrick Keleher), whom he only learned about earlier this season. During Mateo’s tour of the office, he told Torres he felt overwhelmed and did not know if he even wanted to apply for the NCIS internship program.

Then it got weird. Someone told Torres that Mateo borrowed a workstation to submit that application — which did not line up with what Mateo had just said. Torres checked the system and found no application at all. So what was Mateo actually doing on an NCIS computer?

Torres confronted him in an alley. Mateo, jumpy and evasive, pulled a gun and warned Torres off.

"They could be watching."

Torres put his hand on his own weapon and told Mateo to stop moving. The screen went to black. A single gunshot rang out. And that is how the show sent us into hiatus, teasing the potential death of a major character right after spending an hour reminding us how much Vance still looms over this team.

We will find out who fired, who got hit, and what Mateo was really up to when NCIS returns for season 24 in fall 2026. Also worth watching: whether LaRoche actually maneuvers his way into the director’s office. The guy is not exactly subtle about it.