[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 woman 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 means of his alarm, he says. Then he zones out after seeing Lily strolling by means of the corridor of a hospital through the investigation. He blames it on not sleeping and never being a fan of hospitals since he nearly bled to dying in a single when Knight (Katrina Legislation) checks on him. He sees Lily once more, right here, waving.
Parker subsequent zones out whereas the group goes over the case within the bullpen, and Knight follows him into the elevator and stops it to examine if he’s okay. (In the future, 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 automotive, he sees Lily on the facet of the street and blows by means of a cease signal. “Nonetheless assume 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 received the sense that there was greater than he was prepared to speak about and even aware of; it could possibly take months and generally years to course of a traumatic occasion. Parker says he didn’t imply to go away it out, however he didn’t know tips on how to 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 title from the previous. “I’d by no means seen her earlier than, however the title 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 bins 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 internal voice, I don’t know,” he says. “Both approach, it woke me up.” There’s not a lot to inform about his mom, he says. She died when he was younger, a number of years after she moved out. Why did she transfer out? “They fought quite a bit,” he says. His father advised him that someday she went out for pastries and by no means got here again.
Grace warns him they must watch out about digging for repressed reminiscences; there’s the chance of making false ones. However every thing else is for his or her subsequent session, she provides, and he or she needs 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 advised her every thing there may be to inform. She wonders if there’s any connection to his perception in angels—which he didn’t inform her about, however Knight might have throughout her personal session after the ship—and he or she thinks his mother is a form 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, nonetheless, 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 ultimately. Grace means that he hold monitor of the circumstances that accompany Lily’s appearances: his temper, stress stage, and what’s occurring round him. Now that he’s seeing her once more, she recommends he not be alarmed and as a substitute welcome her. Possibly 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 may’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 preferred blood spatter.” Then, Palmer revealed he hung up a darts board within the morgue after discovering one in Ducky’s previous bins; he was a dartist again within the day so he thought he’d grasp it up in his honor.
What’s your idea about Lily? Tell us within the feedback part beneath.
NCIS, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS
