NCIS Season 22 Brings Back A Familiar Villain Played By A Bones Star

Contains spoilers for "NCIS" Season 22, Episode 13 — "Bad Blood"

Tim McGee (Sean Murray) ends up having to expunge some of his own bitter feelings in Season 22, Episode 13 of "NCIS," titled "Bad Blood," to help the team solve a twisted murder case. Those feelings have to do with his understandable hatred toward Fletcher Voss (T.J. Thyne, best known as Jack Hodgins from "Bones"), last seen in Season 21 being a thorn in the side of the team during the show's Easter egg-laden 1000th episode. 

Voss is a good guy — well, as good a guy as he'll ever be — this time out, trying to help the team solve the murder of an employee at his new DNA-related startup business, Life Sequence. In pure "NCIS" style, that murder branches out from the team's original case, the drug-related death of a Navy lieutenant trying to stop a disturbance at a blood bank. The team is loathe to work with Voss, but he swears that he's now a changed person after spending three months in the clink. 

Back in Season 21, Voss created Bandium, an app which the team had been using that was blamed for a criminal tracking down Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) and shooting him at his wife's grave. Further investigation led the team to realize that Vance had instead been shot by a woman who had been radicalized by Voss through an anonymous account on a social media platform — he feared NCIS would cancel its account with the already-broke Bandium. He ends up selling Bandium for a pretty penny offscreen, while getting out of jail because he didn't want Vance to be hurt. Voss then gets Life Sequence up and running using the proceeds he made. But that's only the start of his troubles in "Bad Blood."

At first, Fletcher Voss seems like the perfect suspect in his employee's murder. The team's "Jane Doe" – Lauren Hawthorn — turns out to have been pregnant by Voss in spite of his protests that he never knew her. Since being with Hawthorn would put an onerous burden on Voss' divorce negotiations from his wife, the motive is pretty clear. He maintains his innocence, but it doesn't look good when the blood bank thief overdoses before the team can tie him to Voss. Voss, meanwhile, has a stroke in front of them while being questioned about Lauren.

It turns out the odd blood clotting detected in a sample taken by the team is a result of poisoning, not an overdose. The culprit ends up being Dr. James Donovan (Nick George), who's been poisoning Voss' smoothies while working under him for some time ... and fudging the records at Life Sequence for his own glory and fame. As for Voss, he and McGee come to an understanding when McGee has to give Voss a blood transfusion to help him survive his near-death experience. They share a moment of camaraderie over their travails — leaving the door open for another pop-up appearance from Voss.