NCIS recap: Amanda Schull guest stars as Kay Barlow on the winter premiere

NCIS Season 19 continued with the winter premiere on Monday night.

This new episode of NCIS is called Pledge of Allegiance and it was directed by Rocky Carroll.

Caroll, who also plays Director Vance on the NCIS cast, has now directed 18 episodes of the show.

And as a quick reminder, on the previous episode of the show, a hologram served as one of the characters. When a woman was murdered, it turned out that she had left behind a hologram that ended up helping the team solve the case.

NCIS Season 19, Episode 10 recap: Pledge of Allegiance

For their new case, the NCIS team got called in when Navy Chief Warrant Officer Rafi Nazar (played by Artur Zai Benson) was suspected of trying to sell stolen classified Navy software used to pilot combat drones.

The episode itself started with a woman at home selling jewelry on a video conference, only to have the door broken down by military men looking for her fiance. He was being charged with treason, and the man in charge suggested the woman re-think her wedding plans.

The woman, named Kay Barlow, was played by actress Amanda Schull. She has been seen in a lot of projects over the years, including One Tree Hill as Katie Ryan, Suits as Katrina Bennett, and 12 Monkeys as Dr. Cassandra Railly.

At the offices, Director Vance let McGee, Torres, Knight, and Parker know that they would be leading a manhunt for the missing Naval officer. And thus began the process of the team looking for clues in the case.

The NCIS team is on the case of an MIA suspect

Nazar worked with a master key that allowed him access to a fleet of combat drones, meaning it was a priority to find him right away. Kasie tracked the location from where Nazar had received a text, but when the team got there, they found an infamous hacker who was dead. McGee noted that this was one of the few people who had the skills to hack the Navy, raising the stakes in the case.

It forced the team to turn back to the woman (Kay) who was engaged to their suspect. She continuously defended him, while also revealing very little about him and not letting the NCIS team know where he could be. It felt like she was stringing them along, possibly to just protect her future husband from getting arrested.

Secretary of the Navy Hattie Taylor (played by Denise Crosby) was getting very nervous that the investigation was taking so long to locate Nazar or his master key, and she authorized them to use troops on the streets.

It alarmed Director Vance that she was willing to go that far and the secretary came clean about the fact that there were already operational drones in the air that Nazar or a foreign entity could control with that master key.

When the team was close to catching Nazar, McGee figured out that he might have requested protection from the embassy of Afghanistan, as he was also a citizen of that country. McGee was right and when Parker went inside to meet with Nazar, he proclaimed his innocence. Parker used a tactic by threatening to throw the book at his fiancee, and he agreed to turn himself in so she wouldn’t be in trouble.

During his interrogation, where he continued to say he was innocent, Nazar figured out that it was Kay who had stolen the master key by using his ID and phone. Torres and Knight got Kay to admit it and she stated that she stole it to help the Taliban.

Luckily, the key was deactivated in time and the drones remained under U.S. control. Kay was arrested for espionage and the murder of the hacker, and Nazar was reinstated in the Navy.

An interesting substory within the episode was a mysterious $10,000 that appeared in the bank accounts of Jimmy Palmer and Timothy McGee. They had no idea where it came from, but at the end of the episode, Director Vance let them know it was from Gibbs. The money was earmarked for their kids’ college funds as a way to honor his daughter, who was killed before she could go to college.

There were some really interesting moments as McGee and Palmer expressed their gratitude toward Gibbs, possibly hinting that we could see the character again before the end of Season 19. It would certainly be neat for Mark Harmon to return to the NCIS cast before the show concludes.

Important episodes coming up on NCIS Season 19

We are excited to report that NCIS star Emily Wickersham gave birth. Wickersham played Agent Ellie Bishop on the NCIS cast for a number of years, making a big impact on the show. Her last episode was the Season 18 finale, and now she has started a family.

There are also some exciting new NCIS Season 19 spoilers about a fan-favorite character returning to the show. Not only that but that special episode was also written by one of the stars.

And if that wasn’t enough great news, a big NCIS crossover has been announced for this spring. NCIS fans are not going to want to miss that big night.

NCIS airs Mondays at 9/8c on CBS.

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