Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS episode “Out of Control” are ahead!
Gary Cole’s Alden Parker was badly injured during the NCIS Season 21 finale, and while suffering major blood loss and waiting to be rescued alongside Katrina Law’s Jessica Knight inside an abandoned ship, he had a strange vision involving himself as a child, his mother and a little girl named Lily. Then ahead of Season 22’s premiere on the 2024 TV schedule, co-showrunner Steve D. Binder revealed that Parker doesn’t actually know who Lily is, something that was finally acknowledged in tonight’s episode, “Out of Control”. In fact, one of my favorite recurring characters on NCIS returned to help Parker out as he started seeing Lily in everyday life, although by the end of the episode, the mystery only got more complicated.
Dr. Grace Confalone Came To Help Alden Parker
Lauren San Giacomo has been playing on Dr. Grace Confalone on NCIS since Season 13, when she was introduced as a therapist and new friend for Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Now the show’s other main characters go to her for counseling and psych evaluations, with Grace appearing in every season to follow except for Season 21, which consisted of only 10 episodes due to the writers and actors strikes. San Giacomo finally reprised her character in “Out of Control”, as Parker required Grace’s help to figure out the mystery of Lily.
While the team was investigating a case involving drivers who had control of their cars taken from them and were taken to a remote location to be killed, Parker started seeing Lily as he was awake, rather than just experiencing the previous vision over and over while sleeping. It got bad enough that while Parker was driving, with Nick Torres and Jessica Knight in the car with him, he nearly got into a traffic accident because he was distracted seeing Lily on the side of the road. Knight was already concerned about Parker, and he’d reassured her that everything was fine. After the incident in the car though, it became clear he needed professional help.
First seeing Dr. Grace at his apartment, and then at the Navy Yard, Parker explained to her that the reason he didn’t Lily to her while meeting with her after the aforementioned Season 21 injury was because he thought he’d just been experiencing a fever dream from the blood loss. But clearly that’s not the case, and Parker informed Grace that he has no idea who Lily is, having even asked his father if there was anyone named Lily in their family. Something this complex was never going to be solved in one session or even two, but at least now Parker has Grace to help him through this unusual occurrence. However, as indicated earlier, we were left with more questions than answers by the time the episode was over.
There Are New Layers To Alden Parker’s Lily Visions And Past
When Alden Parker started sharing the details of the vision he saw in the NCIS Season 21 finale, Dr. Grace Confalone latched onto the fact that his mother was in it alongside Lily. When she inquired about the woman, Parker said that his mom died when he was a kid, a few years after she moved out of their house because she and his father argued a lot. However, when Grace later speculated that Parker’s mother may have served as an “angel” figure in his vision because of her instruction to “mind the rope,” he got upset that the therapist kept bringing his mom up.
Parker eventually calmed down and acknowledged that he has some unresolved issues involving his mother, but told Dr. Grace that he would explore that another time and asked her to please focus on Lily, which she agreed to do. So now we have an added aspect of Parker’s background to explore at a later date; namely, why does he not like talking about his mother and what were the specific circumstances that led to her leaving him and his father behind? The conspiratorial part of my brain also can’t help but wonder if his mom might actually still be alive, but I’m by no means putting and stock in that idea.
But here’s where the mystery of Lily took an especially weird turn. After the central case in “Out of Control” was solved, as Alden Parker was leaving NCIS headquarters, he noticed Lily sitting at a nearby table outside writing something on a piece of paper. Rather than panic upon seeing her, he took Dr. Grace’s advice and instead acted more welcoming towards the girl and called out her name. This prompted Lily to run away, and when Parker came to the table where she’d been writing, the paper she left behind read, “You can’t tell anyone.” Of course, this was all happening in his head, so as the episode finished, Gary Cole’s character was just standing by the table holding nothing.
Like I said earlier, this Lily mystery has grown even more complicated. Not only are we no closer to learning her identity, now we have this mysterious “note” she left behind. What is Alden Parker’s mind trying to tell him? Is Lily saying Parker shouldn’t mention her to Dr. Grace anymore? Or is this message in reference to a repressed memory from Parker’s childhood? This is a bizarre story even by NCIS standards, although this is also a series where Leroy Jethro Gibbs continued to see his mentor Mike Franks as a ghost following his death at the end of Season 8, so I guess it’s all subjective.
In any case, my fingers are crossed that NCIS starts delivering concrete answers for this mystery sooner rather than later in Season 22. Tune into the CBS show Mondays at 9 pm ET, and stream new episodes after their initial airings with a Paramount+ subscription. That’s the same platform where you can view all the other NCIS franchise shows, and it will also be the exclusive home for the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
