NCIS Season 21 Premiere Plot Details Tease Torres-Centric Episode & That's Important

When "NCIS" returns for Season 21 on February 12, fans should expect Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) to be front and center. TV Insider provided a first look at the hit procedural series along with its spin-off, "NCIS: Hawai'i," and teased what's to come in the premieres. According to the brief description, "The team must help Torres when he puts his future at stake by confronting the man who tormented his family when he was a child."

It sounds like the Season 21 premiere will pick up right where the Season 20 finale, "Black Sky," left off. Fans saw Torres track down a man, played by Al Sapienza, he has a history with, at one point telling his sister, "I found him, sis. You know who I'm talking about. The bastard's still alive, and he's still doing it." This leads to a tense final scene where Torres meets the man face to face, and when the man asks Torres what he wants, he picks up a gun and says, "To watch you die."

It's a major cliffhanger; fortunately, fans won't have to wait much longer to see some kind of resolution. The Season 21 premiere should be a fairly Torres-heavy episode that hopefully answers who the man is and what he did to Torres' family. Fans have already had to wait longer than they'd like to see what happens with Torres since the SAG-AFTRA strike delayed production over the summer of 2023. Come February, "NCIS" gets right back into the thick of it.

Will "NCIS" Season 21 open with Torres murdering someone, or will the cliffhanger be a fake-out with the special agent coming to his senses at the last second? "NCIS" showrunner Steven D. Binder spoke with TV Insider in May 2023 to discuss the precarious situation Torres would find himself in: "We're going to be wondering, is Torres about to break Torres? Is he going to destroy everything he's worked for and done for putting to bed some old demons?" Then again, perhaps Torres could have his cake and eat it, too, as has been precedented on the procedural.

The darkest thing Leroy Gibbs (Mark Harmon) did on "NCIS" was murder the man who killed his wife and daughter. It was a dark secret for many years, but several team members, including Torres, learned about it in Season 16. That was also a killing done in pursuit of revenge, so it's interesting Torres now finds himself in similar shoes. One would assume he could learn from Gibbs and realize revenge doesn't undo what was done in the past. Then again, he also found out Gibbs killed a guy and got off scot-free, so maybe he's thinking he'll be in the clear. 

If Torres does kill the man and suffer consequences, he'll likely need to be written off the show entirely. That'd be a big move to make for a character as significant as Torres, so the show may follow a different route. All should (hopefully) become clear when "NCIS" returns on February 12.