Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS episode “Sticks & Stones” are ahead!
World War III is a common subject to explore in fiction, and NCIS flirted with the possibility of such a destructive global conflict igniting with its latest episode to air on the 2024 TV schedule. “Sticks & Stones” saw a surprising piece of intel and a series of unfortunate events almost saw the United States launch an attack that would have thrown the whole world into disarray.
Don’t worry, World War III didn’t actually break out in the NCIS-verse, although it was a pretty close call. In the midst of this Season 22 episode, Katrina Law’s Jessica Knight and Brian Dietzen thankfully managed to find closure with each other following their breakup in the Season 21 finale when Jessica decided to become Camp Pendleton’s chief REACT instructor.
How World War III Almost Broke Out
The events of “Sticks & Stones” kicked off when Alden Parker got a call in the middle of the night that was so important that he called the rest of his team into work. The NCIS Naples office intercepted an encrypted message from Belarus, The country was planning a surprise attack on targets all over Europe using mobile ballistic missile launchers. This attack ultimately stemmed from Russia, which was using Belarus as a proxy. Naples picked up the transmission from an algorithm made by someone at the NCIS DC office. Although NCIS eventually got ahold of the location of these missile launchers, a second encrypted message arrived soon after.
However, things started spiraling out of control when NORAD lost contact with Air Force One, which had the Speaker of the House on board with the President of the United States, due to their comm systems going down. The Vice President was also incapacitated by what was initially said to be an emergency colonoscopy. On top of all that, the CIA recommended that Belarus’ ambassador not be informed that the US knows about the attack in order to keep the element of surprise.
As a result, Senator Judd Larmont, president pro tempore of the United States Senate and fourth in the line of succession, decided that it was best to launch tactical nukes on the launchers, which Parker wisely pointed out would start World War III. I should also note how Larmont initially thought NCIS’ Naples office was based out of Florida, not Italy, so the guy isn’t exactly the most informed individual in these kinds of matters. Rather than pass along the coordinates for the launchers, Parker and McGee refused the direct order, as they wanted more time for Kasie to be able to decrypt the second transmission to see if there was information within it that would clarify that detonating a nuke wasn’t necessary.
From there, FBI agents, led by Wayne Sweeney, Parker’s former boss, showed up to arrest Parker and McGee, and lock down the NCIS office. Fortunately, the main NCIS characters, along with Technical Operator Curtis Hubley, were able to interfere with Sweeney taking over, including Curtis locking the FBI out of the algorithm he created, Nick Torres establishing communication with everyone through a dating app called MateQuest after cell phone calls were blocked, and Parker and McGee cutting off power to MTAC… well, actually they did it to the whole building by accident.
Sweeney and his agents eventually found Parker, McGee and Torres, but they convinced Sweeney to give Kasie extra time to decrypt the second transmission, and thank God he did. It stated that Ukrainian special forces had already destroyed the launchers. Director Vance later shared with Parker and Sweeney that the situation with Air Force One wasn’t tied to Belarus, but rather the remnant of some malicious code left over from what went down in the NCIS franchise’s 1,000th episode, and the Vice President was merely dealing with food poisoning.
In other words, a lot of the craziness of “Stick & Stones” came from various misunderstandings and unfortunate coincidences, but cooler heads prevailed in the end. Vance even recommended that Parker and Sweeney be awarded the Distinguished Medal of Public Service.
Jessica And Jimmy Made Peace With Their Breakup
When this World War III craziness kicked off, Jimmy Palmer was sent to track down Jessica Knight, who was out camping for a few days. Because Jimmy’s truck got two flat tires on his way over to inform her about what was happening, he rode back with Jessica in her RV, and things were pretty awkward between them. While they have shared screen time ever since Jessica decided to rejoin the team in the Season 22 premiere, they haven’t had a proper conversation between just the two of them since she returned to DC, let alone discuss how things ended between them romantically.
After learning that the FBI had locked down the NCIS building, Jessica and Jimmy pulled over to hang tight and help out by studying live security footage that Kasie sent over. As this was happening, the two of them finally decided to have that tough conversation, just like showrunner Steven D. Binder promised would happen. While they both admitted that they still loved each other, as Jessica put it, “Wouldn’t it be nice if that were enough?” Jimmy felt she deserved someone who will chase down future job opportunities with her around the world, and she said that he deserved someone who can give him the stability he needs. I’m not entirely convinced that we won’t see Jessica and Jimmy get back together someday, but for now, I’m glad to see that they’ve at least made peace with their relationship coming to an end and are now free to move forward as friends.
New episodes of NCIS air Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS, with the prequel NCIS: Origins following immediately afterwards. Stream the entirety of the NCIS franchise with a Paramount+ subscription, which you’ll also need if you want access to the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which will premiere sometime on the 2025 TV schedule.