Warning: This article contains spoilers for NCIS Season 23.
Fans of the long-running procedural NCIS received quite a shock on March 24, when Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) was killed by a corrupt agent while protecting the agency. While not one of the original cast members — Sean Murray‘s Timothy McGee has been on the longest — the 18 seasons he spent on the show hadconvinced us that he wasn’t going anywhere. Apparently, the writers and showrunner didn’t agree.
While some fans thought the send-off was emotional but satisfying, others felt that, after so many years on the show, he deserved better.
“I gasped and sobbed so hard lol,” wrote one fan on the NCIS Reddit page. “My heart can’t take when they kill/write off a long term character.”
“I kept thinking Vance was dreaming,” commented another. “He was a great director and I will miss him. This is a major letdown.”
“Annoyed,” a disgruntled viewer wrote. “The writers/showrunners dropped the ball getting rid of one of the oldest characters in that way.”
Carroll toldPeople that he first heard about his character’s demise in November, when showrunner Steve Binder told him he had an idea for the 500th episode. “We want to do something that shocks our loyal viewers and just really turns the NCIS universe upside down,” Carroll recalled Binder saying. “And I was like, ‘Oh, wow, that sounds great. Tell me more.’”
Binder revealed that someone would try to destroy NCIS, but Vance would be a hero and stop them. However, when he explained that Vance wouldn’t survive the experience, Carroll was shocked.
“Steve [Binder], he goes, ‘You want to hear more about the story?’” he continued. “And I was like, ‘Let me process the whole thing, what you just told me. Let me take a moment, because right now I’m kind of having a bit of an out-of-body experience.’”
“This wasn’t one of those scenarios where I came to the network or I came to the producers and said, ‘Hey, it’s been a great run, but I think I want to move on,’” he added.
The episode was shot three months ago, so Carroll has had some time to accept Vance’s death. For fans who have come to love Vance over the years, it’s going to take a while to come to terms with his absence.
“Since I wrote my reply I was reading a couple more interviews and I kinda changed my mind,” commented one such fan. “The way Carroll expressed the why’s and all of the significance of him leaving was actually pretty nice, 18 seasons is a looong time.” Besides, even Carroll knows that this isn’t really goodbye. “As far as I know, I’ll be back next season to direct episodes,” he admitted. “We’ve already talked about bringing Vance back in flashbacks.”
