[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS Season 22 Episode 8 “Out of Control.”]
Who’s Lily? That’s the query NCIS followers have had because the Season 21 finale, and properly, it seems we’re not the one ones questioning about that younger lady Parker (Gary Cole) noticed whereas he was bleeding out on the ship: He’s, too!
First, Parker’s late to the crime scene; he blew proper by way of his alarm, he says. Then he zones out after seeing Lily strolling by way of the corridor of a hospital throughout the investigation. He blames it on not sleeping and never being a fan of hospitals since he virtually bled to demise in a single when Knight (Katrina Regulation) checks on him. He sees Lily once more, right here, waving.
Parker subsequent zones out whereas the crew goes over the case within the bullpen, and Knight follows him into the elevator and stops it to examine if he’s okay. (Sooner or later, these buttons are going to interrupt, he remarks.) She is aware of he noticed one thing on the hospital and says he wants to speak to somebody, particularly if he’s seeing ghosts. “Let’s not overstate issues,” he brushes it off, blaming the heebie-jeebies hospitals give him for seeing one thing out of the nook of his eye. “That’s additionally how post-traumatic stress works,” she argues. He insists it’s not an issue … however then whereas driving with Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and Knight within the automobile, he sees Lily on the aspect of the highway and blows by way of a cease signal. “Nonetheless suppose it’s not an issue?” Knight asks.
And so Parker calls up Grace (Laura San Giacomo), and the therapist admits she’d been anticipating to listen to from him since his necessary psych eval after his near-death expertise on the ship. She obtained the sense that there was greater than he was keen to speak about and even acutely aware of; it may possibly take months and generally years to course of a traumatic occasion. Parker says he didn’t imply to depart it out, however he didn’t know clarify it on the time. He tells her about Lily. “Simply thought she was a mirage, a part of this fever dream I used to be having on the ship due to the blood loss, ache… However now, currently, she’s exhibiting up in all places with out the trauma.” Who’s she to Parker? “That’s the issue. I don’t know,” he says.
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Parker’s reached out to his father, however he doesn’t recall anybody with that identify from the previous. “I’d by no means seen her earlier than, however the identify Lily simply got here blurting out of me prefer it was buried deep in my frontal lobe,” he says. Hippocampus, she corrects him. “I don’t care the place she’s saved, I simply need her out,” he tells Grace.
Grace then will get Parker speaking about his mom—since she confirmed up within the fever dream, too—and we get perception into why he brings in pastries. Parker says he noticed his mom holding bakery containers and telling him to thoughts the rope, the one Knight had tied round her ankle earlier than she went underwater. “It was her o some inside voice, I don’t know,” he says. “Both manner, it woke me up.” There’s not a lot to inform about his mom, he says. She died when he was younger, just a few years after she moved out. Why did she transfer out? “They fought quite a bit,” he says. His father instructed him that in the future she went out for pastries and by no means got here again.
Grace warns him they must watch out about digging for repressed recollections; there’s the danger of making false ones. However all the pieces else is for his or her subsequent session, she provides, and he or she desires him to plan to speak about what actually occurred along with his mom.
Nicely, Parker doesn’t make it to that subsequent session (work retains him busy), so Grace tracks him down. He admits that her remark about his mom threw him, particularly since he instructed her all the pieces there’s to inform. She wonders if there’s any connection to his perception in angels—which he didn’t inform her about, however Knight could have throughout her personal session after the ship—and he or she thinks his mother is a sort of angel to him. He refuses to speak about his mom after that—who was no angel, he stresses—and walks away.
A dialog with Kasie (Diona Reasonover) and Palmer (Brian Dietzen) about how useful Grace is does, nevertheless, get him to apologize to her and comply with proceed assembly, however simply to speak about Lily, for now. He’ll take care of his mom finally. Grace means that he maintain observe of the situations that accompany Lily’s appearances: his temper, stress degree, and what’s taking place round him. Now that he’s seeing her once more, she recommends he not be alarmed and as a substitute welcome her. Perhaps that may present him with some solutions. Then comes the awkward second as they half methods: He kisses the highest of her head as he thanks her, and each freeze proper after. What’s that about?
After the case is closed, Parker thanks Knight for giving him the push. Then, as he’s leaving the constructing, he sees Lily sitting at a desk. She runs off as he approaches and calls out to her, however she’s left a observe behind: “You possibly can’t inform anybody.” Parker’s left, alone, holding nothing. What does that imply?!
Elsewhere, this episode had mentions of each Abby (Pauley Perrette, who exited in Season 15) and Ducky (David McCallum, who died in 2023). On the crime scene, after Torres remarked that nobody likes blood spatter, McGee (Sean Murray) corrected him: “Abby favored blood spatter.” Then, Palmer revealed he hung up a darts board within the morgue after discovering one in Ducky’s previous containers; he was a dartist again within the day so he thought he’d grasp it up in his honor.
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NCIS, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS