Though NCIS has embraced many elements of fiction in its 22 seasons, it’s never fully embraced romance, but season 23 may change that. In doing so, it could reinvent the long-running series in a significant way. When NCIS season 23 kicks off, the main focus will be on hunting down Carla Marino, the mob boss who killed Parker’s father in an act of revenge.
It’s not that NCIS has never incorporated romance before, but it’s always been on the sidelines or part of the B-plot, never the main story, such as Bishop and her now ex-husband, or McGee and his wife. Or, it was something that was used to shape a tragic backstory, like Gibbs and the deaths of his former lovers. And, of course, there was the will-they, won’t-they dynamic of Tony and Ziva for seasons, though it’s a relationship that has still not fully come to fruition.
NCIS Season 23 Will Revolve Around Romance In A Way It Never Has Before
However, that changed considerably in the past few seasons with the romance and love story that blossomed between main NCIS team members Jessica Knight and Jimmy Palmer. Their friends-to-lovers romance played out on screen for everyone to see, both their colleagues and the audience, and they committed to their feelings and their relationship in a way that the emotionally challenged Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David never did.
Last season saw the happy couple go through a devastating breakup, however, at the end of NCIS season 21 when they realized they wanted different things out of life. Season 22 continued that tension, but it was evident that they still had feelings for one another and neither was comfortable with seeing other people at first. Even though life continued to pull them apart through last season, there’s still a sense that they’ll find their way back to one another.
In a new interview with TV Insider, EP Steven D. Binder has confirmed that NCIS season 23 will hardly resolve those complicated feelings for one another — If anything, what Knight and Palmer feel for each other will be messier than ever, hinting it’s not fully over between them. “It’s complicated, and it’s going to get even more complicated,” explained Binder. That certainly doesn’t sound like two people who no longer have feelings for each other.
That won’t be the only romantic entanglements that apparently have a significant impact on the story, revealed Binder. Torres’ love life will have its part to play, too. The infamously commitment-phobic and then famously unlucky-in-love agent has yet to really find his match. This season, he will get back into the dating world “in a way that’s going to cause a lot of problems for everybody,” but, he teases, it won’t matter because “the heart wants what the heart wants.”
NCIS Putting More Focus On Romantic Storylines Is Fitting For The Post-Gibbs Parker Era
Considering what Binder revealed, it seems that romance will have a more impactful role in NCIS season 23 than before. If it does, it could reinvent the show in a way that feels far more fitting of the post-Gibbs Alden Parker era. Gibbs was always the archetype of the lone wolf, emotionally closed off and guarded. Even after years with his team, there was still always the sense that he kept his walls up.
Since Parker has taken over as the team leader, the dynamic has changed. Gibbs’ replacement is far more open and collaborative than his predecessor; he’s more jovial, more at ease, and more about building emotional bonds with the agents under his care. Thus, it makes sense that the show might delve more deeply into the most intimate kind of emotional bond in a way it hasn’t focused on before.
NCIS has been going strong for over two decades now, but every show must reinvent itself if it expects to continue for seasons to come. As evidenced by the early success of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, audiences are craving more of the romantic human connection between the characters they love.
That’s not to say that season 23 will completely abandon the spirit of the series, and that the show will become something different. Far from it, actually. But if the long-running show feels it’s the right time to evolve and reinvent itself in a fresh new way, now’s the time, if its slightly less impressive ratings of the past few seasons are any indication. The times are changing, and it appears that NCIS season 23 is going to be smart enough to change with them.
