‘NCIS’ season 11 spoilers: Supporting the fallen

With so many “NCIS” season 11 stories these days being so focused on Ziva and how producers are planning to write the character off of the show, it is almost nice today to shift the focus to something that is at least somewhat different: What is going to happen with some of the other characters down the road.

With that, the focus that we have here is on Rocky Carroll’s Leon Vance, and how he is going to be forced to spend the holidays this year without his murdered wife Jackie for the first time. That’s a sad, lonely experience, and that explains Gary Glasberg’s comments to TV Guide that the show is looking for a way to give him someone else to communicate with when this episode airs right before Thanksgiving:

“We’ll be casting the father of Vance’s wife. We think it will really have some resonance.”

While Jackie was a wife to him, the father will of course have a completely different viewpoint about who Jackie was. Thus, we have a rare opportunity to inform a character that is no longer a part of the show, and also give us some further insight into the Leon character and how he communicates with others in a more personal setting.

Before we come to this episode, there are also going to be a number of other mysteries that the team will end up taking on; however, there is a gap in information right now between the start of season 11, Ziva’s exit, and then this episode. The writers have been forced to scramble in many ways to reconfigure much of the story ahead, and they are well on their way.

Want more “NCIS” season 11 scoop? We have more here on some of the people that the show is casting, and how Pauley Perrette feels about all of the changes.

Photo: CBS