Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS Season 23 premiere are ahead!
In the final moments of the NCIS Season 22 finale, Gary Cole’s Alden Parker came home to discover that his father, Roman Parker, had been murdered. This appeared to have been the work of Kansas City mob boss Carla Marino, who holds Parker responsible for the death of her son many years ago.
The NCIS Season 23 premiere, which just aired on the 2025 TV schedule, wasted no time in having Parker go on the hunt for Carla. While that was certainly intense to watch and led to an even bigger threat being discovered, I was getting more stressed out by the tumultuous relationship between him and his sister, Navy Vice Admiral Harriet Parker, played by Nancy Travis.
Parker Crossed Some Major Lines Looking For Carla Marino
Just like Gary Cole predicted when I interviewed him back in May, Alden Parker went outside the bounds of the law almost instantly in “Prodigal Son (Part 1)” to track down Carla Marino. First, he called in dozens of bomb threats called into multiple transport hubs to shut down the Easter seaboard so that she couldn’t escape. Then, after the team decided to discreetly help Parker out rather than follow Director Leon Vance’s orders and make sure he didn’t interfere with the case, he was caught in a shootout when enemies of Carla kidnapped one of her men. Finally, after the team rescued said suspect, Parker got a little too rough with the man after learning that Carla used his stolen gun to kill Roman.
Eventually the team learned that Carla was going to be on a ship called the Quentin that was docked in Baltimore and headed for Newfoundland, but I’ll talk more about that in a little bit. Even though the Carla story will conclude soon, it’s already looking like the consequences of Alden Parker’s questionable actions will influence the rest of Season 23. Enough has already happened to negatively affect his relationship with Vance going forward.
Parker Is In His Sister’s Bad Graces Personally And Professionally
Funny enough, Alden Parker and Harriet did not share any screen time in the present day storyline of “Prodigal Son (Part 1),” but their fraught sibling relationship received plenty of attention. Flashbacks showed that Parker’s frequent stints in juvie drove a wedge between them when they were growing up, as Harriet was the “good kid” and was upset about how her brother acting out was affecting the health of their father. Their adult selves weren’t keen on talking with each other following Roman’s death, although Harriet at least tried to call Parker, but he ignored it.
Now this personal conflict added enough tension to the NCIS Season 23 premiere, but then Harriet Parker got involved with the hunt for Carla Marino. It turned out the Quentin was believed to be “moving weapons and personnel tied to active threat networks.” As such, Navy Special Operations takes Vice Admiral Parker to take over the operation to deal with the ship.
The problem? It was discovered that Alden Parker snuck aboard the Quentin to try and find Carla. The bigger problem? Harriet Parker was ordered to blow up the Quentin before it crosses into international waters because it’s confirmed a threat to national security. Since Carla Marino tried to detonate a dirty bomb on U.S. soil last season, the Navy isn’t taking any chances with her.
Harriet ordered that the Quentin be fired upon at the end of the episode, but we can safely assume that something will prevent that from happening in “Prodigal Son (Part 2).” After all, we need to see what happens between the Parker siblings next week when they finally come face to face and have to talk about their father being murdered by someone who wanted to hurt Alden. New episodes of NCIS air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, and can be streamed afterwards with a Paramount+ subscription.