WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the NCIS season 21 finale.
NCIS’ season 21 finale has left fans all asking the same thing: Is Agent Knight leaving NCIS?
Agent Jessica Knight (played by Katrina Law) joined NCIS in season 18 after her REACT Unit was disbanded when several members had been killed.
But it was really the beginning of Knight’s journey with her new team and the start of her blossoming romance with chief medical examiner Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen).
Fast-forward to the series 21 finale and Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) has offered her a position as the REACT team’s chief training officer at Camp Pendleton in southern California.
Knight agreed to mull over her decision but Jimmy was told about the possible move by someone else, leading to an unexpected outburst from her usually mild-mannered boyfriend.
Read more: NCIS Hawaii’s Vanessa Lachey shares tearful ‘Sweet Jane’ video after axed news
Jimmy and Jess didn’t have time to talk it through though as she was sent off on a dangerous mission where her boss Agent Alden Parker (Gary Cole) was trapped on a soon-to-be sunk Navy ship.
Thankfully, both of them were able to escape mostly unscathed but, before doing so, Parker advised that there was “no sense being afraid of making” a decision.
He also said that while he would “fight like hell” for her to stay, he acknowledged that “birds gotta fly”.
So when Jess was next faced with Vance, she told him: “Hell yeah, sir. Let’s do it”, confirming that she would be taking on the job.
Is Katrina Law’s Agent Jessica Knight leaving NCIS?
With Agent Knight taking on another job thousands of miles away, it does appear that this could be the end of Law’s time on NCIS.
Of course, this hasn’t been officially confirmed and given that she’s only just accepted the position, Agent Knight is still expected to return for season 22.
It could be a case of CBS viewers seeing how she and Jimmy manage a long-distance relationship before either they part ways for good or she makes her way back to the team.
But as showrunner Steven D Binder told TV Line, characters’ exits aren’t always easy to predict.
“Well, we set something up there. And I will point you to our track record where you just never know.
“We’ve had people look like they were going away and then it turned out they weren’t, and then we had people who just disappeared, like Gibbs.
“So I will say this: We do aim to please and we think the audience will be satisfied with where they see this go.”
Law herself also gave her thoughts on why she felt that taking the new job was the right decision for Knight.
“She has to go forward and see where these things lead, she can’t settle into something she knows will ultimately make her angry and have regrets.
“And I think Jimmy’s in the same place — he had a chance to basically say: ‘Please don’t take this job’ and he didn’t.
“He instinctively knows that Knight needs to go do this, and then they can see where they are after.”
NCIS is available to watch on CBS and Disney+.
