Spoilers below for NCIS: New Orleans' series finale, so be warned if you haven't yet watched!
Many NCIS: New Orleans fans (not to mention Scott Bakula himself) are still in shock that Season 7 is the end of the line for the CBS drama, with the network dropping the cancellation news earlier this year. In spite of such disbelief, the episode "Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler" did indeed wrap things up for Scott Bakula's Dwayne Pride and the spinoff's other beloved characters...and not so beloved characters. Thankfully, things ended pretty happily for Pride, who gained two permanent new family members, but less happily for Callie Thorne's Sasha Broussard, whose story was given a looser end.
CinemaBlend reached out to NCIS: New Orleans showrunner and executive producer Christopher Silber and fellow executive producer Jan Nash, who answered a few of my big finale questions via email. So without further ado, let's dive into some of those answers.
Why NCIS: NOLA Gave Pride Such A Happy Ending
Happy TV endings aren't exactly rare, but they're a bit harder to find in this day and age, and NCIS: New Orleans hasn't exactly avoided dark storylines in the past. However, the series finale did indeed live up to its title when the good times started rolling after the third act arrived. Dwayne Pride became a married man once again by marrying Rita Devereaux, and the ceremony was as cute as one would expect, considering Rita is played by Scott Bakula's real-life wife Chelsea Field. And the family grew by one more by way of Drew Scheid's Connor Davenport, who was recently revealed to be Pride and Sasha's son.
After seeing how much fun Connor was having with Pride's friends and family at the wedding, Sasha made the impulsive (but probably inevitable) call to make a swift escape, thus giving Pride a chance to raise his son for a few of his remaining teenage years. I asked executive producers Christopher Silber and Jan Nash about ending Pride's story in this way, and here was the answer:
It was important to both Jan and myself that we end on a high note. We wanted to leave our characters, especially Dwayne Pride, in a better place than we found them. When we first met Pride, his marriage was ending and his daughter was heading off to college. Seven season later we’ve managed to come full circle with a new marriage and a 'new' son. This feels like a proper and fitting resolution for a character who has been through so much.
It was indeed a cyclical ending for Dwayne Pride, and made all the more meaningful for Chelsea Field to have joined the show as at least one catalyst for Pride's happiness beyond the show's conclusion. It's of course a shame that we didn't get a post-credits tag featuring Shanley Caswell's Laurel Pride having family dinner with her father, Rita and Connor, but we can imagine that this would have happened at some point sooner rather than later.
What Happened To Sasha Broussard?
Though NCIS: New Orleans' creative team wrapped Pride's story up pretty conclusively, at least in terms of dramatic mysteries, they went a slightly different route with Sasha's final moments. Having already given the WITSEC agents the slip, Sasha followed her call to Pride by ditching her phone out a car window and driving away, presumably with a far-away destination in mind. Only it wasn't that simple, as another vehicle quickly pulled out and began following Sasha as she drove off. Dun dun dun!!
As it turns out, whatever ending you think went down is kind of the one that NCIS: New Orleans' executive producers wanted you to think happened. Here's why they kept Sasha's final moments so vague:
In our minds, fans get to decide or debate how Sasha’s story ends - or if it ends. We very purposely left it open-ended for that play along.
So if you think Sasha gets followed for a while until her car is sideswiped in the middle of nowhere, and she gets killed by rogue assassins, that could be the case. If you think whoever was following Sasha was a good Samaritan who called the cops on her for throwing her phone out of the window, thus landing her back in the government's clutches, that could have happened. Or if you think she out-maneuvered those following her and got away from all of her troubles and relocated to a gorgeous island, that could also have been Sasha's outcome. It really depends on whether you're a pessimist or an optimist, I guess.
Unfortunately for fans, NCIS: New Orleans is now completely finished after seven seasons on CBS, but anybody who wants to relive any of the past seven seasons is able to do so along with many other dramas on the Paramount+ streaming service. But before anybody gets too sad about anything, remember there are lots of awesome shows coming our way through the 2021 Summer TV schedule.
