Brian Dietzen has been part of the NCIS family almost since the beginning, having debuted as Jimmy Palmer late in the CBS series’ first season and becoming an official main cast member in Season 10 after years of being a guest/recurring player. We’ve seen Jimmy form all kinds of relationships with people who’ve come and gone from the show, including with Wilder Valderrama’s Nick Torres. These two have shared screen time since Valderrama joined NCIS in Season 14, but Dietzen has revealed there’s a Torres moment in an upcoming episode that’s one of his “favorite parts” of the entire series.
After a month-long hiatus, NCIS is resuming next week with “The Helpers,” Season 19’s 13th episode. The story sees Jimmy Palmer and Diona Reasonover’s Kasie Hines being exposed to a deadly biotoxin. While the team recruits familiar face Dr. Carol Wilson to help save the day by finding an antidote, it’ll be up to Nick Torres to keep Jimmy’s daughter Victoria distracted, as this unfortunate event coincides with the day Jimmy decided to bring Victoria to work with him. Brian Dietzen explained to TV Line that he’s especially impressed with what’s done with Wilmer Valderrama in this episode, saying:
Honestly, that’s like one of my favorite parts of the whole show, the fact that Wilmer just kind of knocks it out of the park in this episode. It’s funny, because he was like, ‘Damn, I didn’t feel like I was doing like a whole hell of a lot. ‘But I had just sat in on our cut, so I said, ‘No, your presence there of just being this kind of uncle figure to her and holding her hand through this whole thing, distracting her, keeping her mind at ease, is so important.’ Wil just does an amazing job at it, with his presence within it. There are a couple of moments that definitely got me, you know? Where I’m thinking, ‘Wow. I co-wrote this thing and you’re still getting me, man. That’s great.’
Brian Dietzen is especially qualified to commend Wilder Valderrama’s performance in “The Helpers,” because in addition to his performing duties, he also co-wrote the episode with executive producer Scott Williams. AS NCIS fans know, Jimmy Palmer’s wife, Breena, passed away from COVID-19. So Victoria now faces the prospect of losing another parent, leaving it up to Nick Torres to try and keep her calm while the other characters figure out a way to save Jimmy and Kasie. While there other aspects of this next NCIS episode that Dietzen is proud of, it’s high praise for him to say that these are his favorite Torres scenes.
“The Helpers” follows on the heels of “Fight or Flight,” which showed Nick Torres aggressively working through the emotional turmoil of so many people having left him. As if his father resurfacing after decades away, only to disappear again, wasn’t bad enough, the NCIS Season 18 finale saw Emily Wickersham’s Ellie Bishop, for whom he’d developed romantic feelings, leaving the team, and then Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs exited in Season 19’s “Great Wide Open.” It’s unclear how much the events of next week’s NCIS episode will impact him, but Valderrama is being lined up to lead a Zorro series for Disney+, it begs the question of if Torres’ time on the series is also winding down.
NCIS airs Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS. Read through our 2022 TV schedule to learn when your favorite shows are either airing or set to return, as well as what new shows are hitting the airwaves and streaming.
