What would Jess decide about her future? And who is ‘Lily’?

It looks like the NCIS team will look a little different when the long-running CBS drama returns with season 22 in the fall.

Heading into this year’s season finale, we knew Director Vance would offer Special Agent Knight a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become the Chief Training Officer of the REACT team, based at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. And while Jess quickly told Vance she’d think about the offer, she dragged her heels to thank colleague and partner Dr. Jimmy Palmer about the decision before her. So when Jimmy got wind of his girlfriend’s possible new “chef” title through fellow team members, there were words.

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Jimmy came to regret that “outburst” but was unable to apologize to Jess as she and Parker were confined aboard a decommissioned and soon to be sunk Navy ship. During that crisis, Parker — who will be the first to tell you repeatedly that he’s not one to give relationship advice — advised Jess that we only get “one chance to make a difference, or make mistakes,” and that There’s no point in being afraid to make either. He said that if it were up to him, he would “fight like crazy” to keep her on his team, but he also acknowledged that “birds have to fly.”

After hallucinating and then having a childhood memory about a young girl named Lily (with whom a young Alden played hide and seek aboard a ship), Parker emerged from that harrowing ordeal, thanks in part to a daring swim. by Jess. Once the dust settled and the Case of the Week was solved, Vance reminded Knight that she owed him an answer. Though Jess took a moment to look at the hospitalized Parker… and the other “family members” Torres, McGee and Kasie… and, finally, Jimmy, who had just gotten a chance to apologize …she did not chose to keep this team intact, but instead accepted the new gig across the country.

“Hell Yes, sir,” was exactly how she responded to Vance. “Let’s do it.”

Were you at all (or very!) surprised by Jessica’s decision? Read what Katrina Law and one of the showrunners have to say about the twist. And what’s your knee-jerk theory about Lily, the little girl Alden imagined seeing? A childhood best friend who slipped off the ship’s railing and (gulp) met a tragic fate?

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