NCIS season 15: How long should Gabriel Hicks story last?

At the moment, one thing is 100% clear when it comes to Gabriel Hicks and NCIS season 15 — we are not anywhere near the point at present where the story is coming to a close. While we’re going to be waiting until the February episode entitled “Keep Your Friends Close” in order to see the infamous villain again, note that this is not the only chance that we’re going to have in order to see Hicks in action? There will be another opportunity to check him out after that at the end of February, once we get on the other side of the Olympics, and with an episode entitled “Keep Your Enemies Closer.”

The real merit of having a two-part story themed around Hicks is very much clear: It offers up a chance to really dive into this character’s head and better understand precisely who he is, what makes him tick, and also what makes him such a huge threat to the team. We’ve already got some clear evidence that this is not just your ordinary NCIS Case of the Week bad guy — after all, he has outsmarted the team once before and there is a very good chance that he could do that again.

One of the questions that we’re left to wonder is whether or not it would benefit the show to start crafting Hicks so that he can be a little bit closer to what Criminal Minds had this past season with Mr. Scratch. It benefits the team in some way to have some sort of central threat that they can take down — it unifies them. While we know that all of them constant spend their time working together for the same cause, it’s a little bit different when there is one specific person you’re after. Bringing Hicks back both for these two episodes and then the finale could create a better sense of drive and purpose. It could also create some high stakes.

For example, what if Hicks for whatever reason causes Abby to consider not being in this job anymore? What if he kidnaps someone like McGee or Bishop and threatens their lives? We need this character to find a way to take things to another level and be one of the first villains in quite some time that NCIS fans will talk about. We know that the potential is there, and that is one of the reasons why we absolutely would like to see it happen. If this was just some other run-of-the-mill villain we would just tell the writers to wash their hands of them and try to find a way to move forward with some other ideas.

With Hicks, though, there is potential — we just have to see if there is a legitimately good way that the writers can pull this off and capitalize on some of this said potential.

What do you want to see in terms of Gabriel Hicks on NCIS season 15? Be sure to share in the comments! Meanwhile, like CarterMatt on Facebook to score even more NCIS news. (Photo: CBS.)