NCIS: New Orleans season 5 finale: Scott Bakula on seeing Pride’s mother

There are a number of different things worth being excited about within the context of the NCIS: New Orleans season 5 finale, starting with the continuation of the Apollyon story. We know that Pride’s in a terrible spot entering Tuesday’s episode, most notably in that Walker has captured him and it’s going to be up to the rest of the team in order to track him down and save his life — that is, of course, if Pride cannot get out of this situation himself.

Beyond just this situation, though, there is another mystery out there — what’s going to be happening in terms of Pride’s mother? We know that Joanna Cassidy has been cast to play the character, but given what we know about her in the present, it seems hard to imagine that we’re going to be seeing her suddenly paying Pride a visit on the other side of the country.

For now, how the show is using this character certainly remains a mystery, and that is something that Scott Bakula is teasing further with some comments that he made in a new interview with TVInsider:

“First of all, I have to say, casting Joanna Cassidy, obviously in real life she’s not old enough to play my mother, so that is part of the story that I’ll tease with that. She’s kind of the missing link for Pride in terms of his heart and his heartbreak, and we’re going to use her in a very unusual way. But hopefully there’ll be more after this season with her and again, the road to finding his mother really opened up when he lost his dad.

“All these things kind of snowball and affect each other. I think it’s been good storytelling, and I think the audience is going to be really surprised and delighted by her, for sure.”

However Cassidy appears will probably be integral to the story, but not necessarily integral in the way in which you would think. We know that this is a show that does fundamentally like to surprise you in its finales, and it could certainly do so here. We do hope the Apollyon storyline does get somewhat tied together in the finale — there’s been a lot of entertaining, high-octane stuff with it, but we do want to see in season 6 things get centralized again on New Orleans and also check out the team fighting off some local threats. Bakula mentions in this interview that he would love to get back to doing some more music as this character, and that is absolutely something that we can get a little bit more behind.

Hopefully, the finale (which you can read more about over at the link here) finds a way to get all of the team involved, and then also allows us a chance to start speculating as to what season 6 could look like. There’s nothing better than having an off-season full of theories and fun discussions.

What do you think is going to be coming up for Pride within the NCIS: New Orleans season 5 finale? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: CBS.)