NCIS 1,000th Episode Easter Eggs Go Back To Episode 1, Teases Star
Long-time cast member Sean Murray teases NCIS’ upcoming 1000th episode, revealing that it will have Easter eggs that go back to the show’s 2003 pilot.
Sean Murray teases Easter eggs that go back to the show’s premiere in NCIS‘ 1000th episode. Playing Timothy McGee, the actor is the longest-serving cast member in the CBS police procedural. Because of this, he has been in the majority of groundbreaking NCIS episodes over the years, so celebrating the franchise’s upcoming milestone will be very special. Not much has been revealed about the outing thus far, but it has been confirmed that NCIS‘ overall 1000th episode will put Director Leon Vance at the center of its storytelling.
Speaking to TVInsider, Murray hypes up what fans can expect from NCIS‘ 1000th episode, and while he can’t talk about anything spoiler-specific, he reveals that there was a lot of thought put into the outing. One way to do that is to include countless Easter eggs for some of the show’s most memorable episodes, including deep cuts that go all the way back to NCIS‘ pilot episode, “Yankee White” from 2003. Read his full quote below:
My favorite thing of what we’ve done in the 1,000th episode is we have got little Easter eggs and things hidden all through the episode—and not even just hidden. We call back to a lot of things, but it’s a little hard to describe. It’s a great show for the people that are just tuning in for the first time or new fans. For the people that have been with us for a long time, it’s really something special because you’re going to see, like I said, Easter eggs of things. You’re going to see things that tip-off to old episodes, famous episodes that we did. Little moments. We have characters come back that we haven’t seen in a very long time.”
For example, like it was very much part of the first episode of the series, “Yankee White. Air Force One is very involved in that as are characters from that episode and from our past there. It’s going to be a cool one.
Murray’s McGee wasn’t part of “Yankee White,” as he isn’t an original NCIS cast member. He debuted as a recurring character several episodes after the pilot and was eventually promoted to be a series regular.
What To Expect From NCIS’ 1000th Episode
Although the procedural’s story really started in JAG, the events of the NCIS pilot set the groundwork for the beloved police procedural. By then, Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs already had a solid team that was composed of Michael Weatherly’s Anthony DiNozzo, Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto, and David McCallum’s Ducky Mallard. Responding to a mysterious death on Air Force One, Sasha Alexander’s Caitlin Todd, who was fired from her job at the Secret Service, eventually joined Gibbs’ team. Another character introduced in the pilot is Joe Spano’s Tobias Fornell, who will return in NCIS‘ 1000th episode.
Deciding to center the outing on Vance makes sense, considering that he is the director of all the active units of NCIS. While a crossover is out of the question, expect that familiar faces from other branches of the agency will be involved in helping their boss with his current dilemma. It’s uncertain if any other old cast members will return. Realistically, however, it’s safe to say that Harmon’s Gibbs won’t be involved. The creatives behind the show have already made it clear that they are saving his inevitable appearance for something that can be focused on him.
The 1000th episode will air on April 15 and will coincide with the current run of NCIS season 21. It sounds like it will be a case-per-week format, which means that the mystery will be solved at the end of an hour. Ideally, it would be better if there’s a bigger fanfare around the special, but with the NCIS universe continuously expanding, at least viewers won’t have a shortage of content from the procedural moving forward.
