The William Decker Detail That Has NCIS Fans Scratching Their Heads

While a great many mysteries are usually solved over the course of a single "NCIS" episode, sometimes the show's viewers can fixate on unresolved details that just don't seem to add up for them. Indeed, while Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and his crack team of Naval investigators frequently catch the bad guys and bring them to justice, sometimes the cases they investigate bring them into situations that the average police procedural wouldn't cover. At least, that is the case with the show's two-part Season 5 finale, which sees the NCIS' director encounter ghosts from her past and pay the ultimate price for redemption.

The episode's central case begins with the demise of Special Agent William Decker (Mark Vahanian), whose death is initially ruled as being the result of a heart attack. However, NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly) has her suspicions that Decker was killed in revenge for a covert operation that she, Decker, and Gibbs took part in nearly a decade prior to the events of the season finale. Investigating Decker's apparent murder, the deceased agent's girlfriend Sasha (Besty Rue) reveals that William had an "insurance policy" he'd put together consisting of a number of potentially incriminating documents he planned to use to keep himself safe. Mike Franks (Muse Watson), Shepard's partner in her off-the-books investigation, provides the policy to Gibbs, and this is where things start to get a bit confusing for fans.

While the contents of William Decker's "insurance policy" in "NCIS" aren't revealed in their entirety, there are a number of items referenced in it that continue to confuse some of the show's fans. For instance, Redditor u/WilAgaton21 recently expressed confusion over Decker's so-called "insurance policy," writing, "I understand Decker is a Senior SA, after all, Riley gave Decker point when Gibbs and Jenny were sent to France. But to have classified files on everything (it seems) for the next few seasons is, frankly, mind-blowing. From Project Frankenstein to Phantom 8 of Watcher Fleet and Project Aquamarine. This guy practically had files on everyone and everything."

To the Redditor's credit, the notion that Decker had obtained so many sensitive naval documents does seem a little unbelievable. That's especially true when dealing with things like Project Frankenstein, which produces the show's Season 8 serial killer Jonas Cobb (Kerr Smith), or the Phantom 8 elite black ops unit that produces its murderous Season 9 operative Jonathan Cole (Scott Wolf). It's an eclectic assortment of documents, to say the least.

It's easy to get caught up theorizing about how William Decker managed to obtain the information needed to build his "insurance policy," especially considering the fact that he was apparently doing it all under the noses of his colleagues and superiors. However, while part of the fun of watching "NCIS" is wondering exactly how certain off-screen events played out in order to create the circumstances for our heroes' latest adventures, that kind of speculation can also get a bit overzealous at times.

Indeed, when it comes to questions like these, the simplest explanation is likely the best one. Redditor u/SigmaKnight seemed to adopt that approach in their response to the OP's "NCIS" question as well, which consisted of just two words: "Secret. Agent." In other words, maybe Decker obtained the files included in his "insurance policy" simply because he had the skill set necessary to do so?

After all, while "NCIS" is often an entertaining investigative procedural, fans can sometimes forget that it also features government agents who can get involved in international espionage. Therefore, this Decker mystery works as a healthy reminder that, although the members of Gibbs' team are intrepid investigators in their own right, they're also allowed to just be TV spies.