This sun-soaked Oz crime drama picks up a month after the second installment’s cliffhanger finale when forensic scientist Blue (Mavournee Hazel) came home to an intruder waiting in her living room.
“We’re right to feel worried for Blue. The ripples of that woman’s arrival in Blue’s life will be significant throughout the season, affect the rest of the team, and her place within it,” reveals NCIS: Sydney executive producer Morgan O’Neill. “Their work family has shifted significantly in that month. You’ll understand why in the first three minutes of the show. Not everyone’s happy about it.”
Emotions must be put aside in the season premiere when the agents investigate a sinister terrorist plot. It’s the first of many twisty cases featuring amped up action (if that’s possible!) and new locations. “We lay it all on the line — the scale, the scope, it’s increased season to season,” O’Neill says. “One week it’s Ebola, the next Australia’s version of Roswell in the deep outback, looking for people who have potentially been abducted by flying saucers. In Season 3, you’ll definitely see some sides of Australia that you haven’t seen before.”
What you won’t see is office romance, at least for now. The team’s “mom and dad,” agents Michelle Mackey (Olivia Swann) and JD Dempsey’s (Todd Lasance) attraction stays on simmer, despite how obvious it is to everyone that they’re a match. O’Neill explains, “We have two work colleagues who spend 50 or 60, 70 hours a week alongside one another, putting their life on the line for one another. They’re both single, JD newly single. They’re both charismatic, attractive, smart, brave, courageous, good people. But they’re also the two bosses. How do they deal with that [attraction] without blowing up the team?”
Things do blow up for agent DeShawn Jackson (Sean Sagar) and constable Evie Cooper (Tuuli Narkle). “Something’s introduced into that relationship, which really changes the complexion of it in a really meaningful way,” O’Neill teases. “It allows us to look at their relationship, their friendship, the nature of what it means to be partners in a totally different light.”
Every single person on the team might get their own version of Blue’s surprise visitor. “One of the key through-lines for this upcoming Season 3 of NCIS Sydney is the idea that you can’t outrun your past,” O’Neill shares. “None of us can, let’s be real. And in trying to outrun your past, all you really do is increase the velocity of impact when it catches you, which it will. For all our characters in one way or another, that truth becomes self-evident.”
NCIS: Sydney, Season 3 Premiere, Tuesday, October 14, 10/9c, CBS