The NCIS franchise is celebrating quite the milestone this April, with its 1,000th episode slated to air on the mothership.
While there is only one other NCIS show on right now—Hawai’i airs after NCIS on Mondays—the 1,000th episode, airing on April 15, will feature appearances from at least one character whose series has already ended. Daniela Ruah, who played Kensi Blye on NCIS: LA (and directed a recent episode of NCIS), and Vanessa Lachey, who stars as Jane Tennant on Hawai’i, will be part of the milestone, according to TVLine, though they won’t be in D.C. “in person.” According to the outlet, their guest spots should be “quite fun.” The outlet also reports that Spence Moore II will be taking over the role of Vance’s (Rocky Carroll) son in the installment.
Both Kensi and Tennant know the NCIS team after the three-show crossover last season (pictured above), which saw the latter travel to D.C., then back to Hawai’i, and finally to LA, where she met up with the rest of the OSP team. (LL COOL J‘s Sam and Chris O’Donnell‘s Callen had both made both trips before eventually returning to LA.)
The 1,000th episode is “going to be huge to try and embrace the entire NCIS universe,” NCIS co-showrunner David J. North told us before the season began. “One of our most beloved characters will be in grave danger.”
Brian Dietzen also shared with us that the episode is written by Christopher Waild, who is “one of our best writers. A lot of our writers are the best writers, but Chris is just wonderful at this, and he’s also very encyclopedic when it comes to our show. He really loves this show, its history, and everything. So I think he’s just the absolute perfect person to write it.”
When TV Insider spoke to Ruah about the NCIS episode she directed for our aftershow, Case Closed, she’d said, “I am not opposed at all to showing up as Kensi in one of the NCIS shows.”
Ruah and Lachey showing up on NCIS will be far from the first crossover this season for the franchise. LL Cool J is currently over on Hawai’i, but don’t try to get Sam to spill what he’s really doing on the island. He has a cover story in place, and he’s only just admitted that he can’t share why he’s really there, though Ernie (Jason Antoon) has started digging and getting some answers about who’s funding and scheduling things for his trip.
Ruah will be directing an upcoming episode of Hawai’i, which she told us goes deep into the characters and may be “the darkest episode they’ve ever had. The crime that’s committed and what we find out over the course of the episode…it’s not a pleasant story.”
