While the standout moment from the NCIS Season 21 finale was Katrina Law’s Jessica Knight leaving the agency to become the new REACT instructor at Camp Pendleton, there’s more to consider—especially the intriguing mysteries surrounding Gary Cole’s Alden Parker. In “Reef Madness,” Parker mentions learning about ships from his father but is unusually secretive about his mother. More puzzling is Parker’s hallucination of a young girl named Lily, whom he remembers from childhood. As NCIS Season 22 approaches on the 2024 TV schedule, we’ve learned that this storyline will be further explored, and an unexpected revelation from the showrunner has deepened the mystery.
Season 22 remains mostly under wraps, although Wilmer Valderrama, who portrays Nick Torres, hinted that the upcoming episodes will be “more personal, more soul-shattering.” When TVLine questioned co-showrunner Steven D. Binder about whether Season 22 would delve deeper into the mysteries of Lily and Parker’s mother, he dropped a fascinating clue:
“I will say this… It’s not entirely clear to him who this girl [seen in flashback/hallucination] was. There’s something in his past that even he’s not aware of that’s bubbling to the surface.”
This twist adds an intriguing layer to Parker’s storyline. Initially, it seemed Lily might have been a childhood friend, possibly linked to a long-buried trauma. But now, it appears Parker himself isn’t sure who Lily is. This could suggest a repressed memory or that Lily might not even be real, potentially serving as a manifestation of someone else. Parker’s vision of Lily occurred while he was trapped under a massive pipe, and extreme pain can cause the mind to play tricks.
With two months to go until NCIS Season 22 premieres, fans are left speculating how Lily ties into Alden Parker’s past—a past that includes time in juvenile detention and a marriage to Vivian Kochak that ended in 2005. Gary Cole has been a central figure in NCIS since early Season 19, stepping in as Supervisory Agent after Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ departure. NCIS Season 22 is set to begin airing on Monday, October 14, alongside the debut of the prequel NCIS: Origins on CBS. To revisit the entire NCIS franchise or catch the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva, you’ll need a Paramount+ subscription, as the latter will be a streaming-exclusive series.
