By Mallory Mattingly
NCIS has just cast Nancy Travis (LAST MAN STANDING) as Navy Vice Admiral Harriet Parker, the sister of Special Agent Alden Parker in Season 23.
According to TVLine, Travis will appear in the two-part season premiere, which kicks off Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 8/7c. It will “offer a glimpse into how Alden became the man he is today.”
“The Alden Parker that we know and see now is not what Alden Parker was as a child,” showrunner Steven D. Binder told TVLine. “We’ve gotten into his history a bit — he was a troubled kid, he was in a juvie home, he stole things — and that’s the dynamic that his sister grew up with. He was the ‘bad’ kid and she was the good kid.”
Fans will love the constant bickering between the brother-sister duo; however, that will also hinder them in the workplace.
“They’re going to relive that between the two of them,” Binder explained. “She’s this super squared-away Navy admiral, and then you’ve got Alden Parker, who’s got this ‘bad kid ‘seed. Those two are going to come to a head, and what’s funny about that is it’s one thing to have it happen over Thanksgiving dinner, it’s a whole other thing to happen in the middle of a global crisis! The bickering is, I might say, very NCIS.”
Season 22 ended with a cliffhanger for Parker.
At the end of the season, “Parker came face-to-face with his longtime nemesis, mob boss Carla (Rebecca De Mornay),” TV Insider reported, adding, “only for her to shockingly not kill him when she could. Instead, she hit him where it really hurt: He arrived home at the end of the finale to find his father (Francis X. McCarthy) dead. It was clear who was responsible, given that Carla blamed him for her son’s death, since he died in a car accident after Parker informed him of his mother’s illegal activities.”
After the Season 22 finale, Binder spoke with TV Insider, explaining how killing off Parker’s father was all about throwing off his balance.
“The idea of Parker is a pretty chill guy, even though he’s had a different upbringing, a troubled upbringing. Whereas the previous bullpen dynamic was you worked around the clock and never stopped and never had a life, he’s a more balanced individual,” the showrunner said. “Gary’s a very balanced guy himself when you see him and you see that bleed over into the character, and we thought it would be very interesting to take that character and push him into a place where he’s never been before.”
“And that’s sort of been something we’ve been talking about almost from — writers get together and are like, ‘Yeah, this character is really turning out to be even and balanced,’ and then, ‘Let’s throw him off balance,’ just sort of an instinct you have,” Binder added. “So that was always there circulating in our head: What is it going to take to send this guy, turn this guy into a man on fire?”
NCIS fans will have to tune in on Oct. 14 to see if Parker’s sister affects his ability to get his job done.
Read Next: Everything We Know About Season 23 of NCIS
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