Katrina Law and NCIS EP Talk About That Finale Twist — and What It Means for Law’s Status in Season 22
The following contains spoilers from the NCIS Season 21 finale.
NCIS castmember Rocky Carroll did tell us that by the end of this season’s finale, Director Vance would get an answer from Special Agent Jessica Knight regarding the career opportunity he laid before her — to be the REACT team’s chief training officer.
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We just kinda thought/assumed Jess would stay put, choosing heart over career.
Instead, in the wake of surviving a harrowing ordeal with Special Agent Alden Parker (and getting a bit of advice along the way), Knight told Vance, “Hell yeah,” she will take the sweet gig across the country at Camp Pendleton. “Let’s do it!” (Read full finale recap.)
But is Knight’s portrayer, Katrina Law, thus leaving the show she has called home since the end of Season 18?
“Well, we set something up there…,” NCIS co-showrunner Steven D. Binder tells TVLine. “And I will point you to our track record where you just never know. We’ve had people look like they were going away and then it turned out they weren’t, and then we had people who just disappeared, like Gibbs.
“So I will say this: We do aim to please,” Binder adds, “and we think the audience will be satisfied with where they see this go.”
TVLine also hopped on the phone with Law to break down Jessica’s heartbreaking decision, and what it means for her NCIS future.
TVLINE | I just finished the finale. What did I just see?!
KATRINA LAW | Oh my gosh, so much happened in the finale. It hit emotions on so many levels, with so many different characters….
TVLINE | Just prior to Jess giving Vance her “Hell yeah” answer, she said to Jimmy that she thought he “had a point.” What exact point of his from their earlier conversation was she conceding?
Backing up a bit, I think that ever since Jessica’s dad showed up, it’s kind of put Jimmy and Knight into a bit of a whirlwind. It’s made them look at the future in longer terms that they originally had planned. All of the sudden, I think a lot of Jimmy’s demons are rearing their ugly heads, with all the people he’s lost in his life, and I think he went into panic mode and and self preservation mode in order to make sure his heart isn’t broken by Jessica also leaving him. Whereas for Jessica Knight, she is asking herself through her dad, “Have I settled? Have I sat back on my heels? Am I living up to my full potential?” And I think that [Jessica and Jimmy] may also be questioning, “Are we each other’s rebounds of a sort?”
I think that at the end, Jessica has to take this position because she knows deep down this is what she wants. She wants a career, she’s very ambitious, and to her a long-distance relationship isn’t the end of things. At the same time, maybe it is, if it doesn’t work out. She has to go forward and see where these things lead, she can’t settle into something she knows will ultimately maker her angry and have regrets. And I think Jimmy’s in the same place — he had a chance to basically say, “Please don’t take this job” and he didn’t. He instinctively knows that Knight needs to go do this, and then they can see where they are after.
TVLINE | So the point of his that she’s conceding is a combo of him saying it’s “for the best” that she takes the job, and how she’s always had this “plan” to follow.
But also, one of the things we tried to build into the backstory leading up to this episode is this outburst from Jimmy and this tension with Knight didn’t just come on in this episode, it didn’t come up with this job happening. This has been building since her father showed up and said, “I thought your future was this?” And Jimmy is thinking, “Well, it’s only a matter of time before you leave anyway, so I’m going to push you out the door, so I don’t have to sit here waiting for it to happen.” And I think Jess has taken a moment to go, “You know what? I think we both have some things to work out on our own. You have some issues to sort out.” Jessica is thinking, “I did take my foot off the gas pedal when I lost my REACT team, so maybe it’s time to reapply the gas.” As much as she loves Jimmy, she knows she can never fulfill that part of the relationship if she herself isn’t a whole person.
TVLINE | The direction of that closing scene threw me and probably others, because we saw Jess clock Parker… then Nick and Tim and Kasie… and then she gave a last look at Jimmy. You had to be thinking she’ll decide to keep the team intact. But she does the opposite.
Life-and-death decisions really make you take a good, hard look at your life and what you want, and I think that’s kind of the conversation that she and Parker were having when they were trapped in the ship. Parker was going, “You can’t have these regrets, you can’t live out of fear.” His basic thing was, “Go forward, be yourself. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t, but you can’t sit if all of your instincts are saying to go forward.”
TVLINE | Did you know this “Hell yeah” answer was coming before you sat down with the script, or did you discover it as you turned the last page?
I kind of knew it was coming. The biggest part of the “Hell yeah” decision for me, when I sat down with Jose Hernandez the director and also Scott Williams the writer, was, “At what point does Knight decide that she is going to take this job ?” And I think it goes all the way up to the very end, when she sits next to Parker right before she leaves his hospital room. That’s the moment she makes the decision, when she sees this man with him she just went to hell and back. That had a real impact on her.
TVLINE | So what’s your official answer when I ask, “Will you be back for Season 22?”
Hmmm…. Better tune in for that season opener! [Laughs, heartily]
TVLINE | That was some fantastic work between you and Gary Cole in those ship scenes. What was it like sharing such an intense two-hander with him?
Working in such an intimate setting with Gary Cole, you see why he has the longevity in this career that he has, and why he is the lead of a show, and why he’s a fan favorite. He is amazing. He knocked that ball so hard out of the park that I literally went, “I have to step up my game because I’m about to get left behind.”
That said, it was also one of the easiest acting scenes that I’ve ever had to do because he was so present and so in the moment, that I just had to look at him to react. He’s brilliant, he’s grounded, and so supportive…. It was a dream. It was a dream.
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