WARNING: The following contains spoilers from NCIS: Hawai’i Season 1, Episode 12, “Spies, Part 1” which aired Jan. 23th on CBS.
Less than a week after an undercover operation nearly left an agent dead, NCIS: Hawai’i returned with a special episode at a special time. The Sunday night showing of “Spies” was the first part of a two-parter, and its cliffhanger left fans on the edge of their seats after a major development. As the episode ended, it looked as if Special Agent Tennant’s Mentor and friend was in charge of a Chinese spy ring. Here’s what happened and when part two of the episode will air.
The episode began when Lt. Commander Joseph Cheng -- an engineer working on satellite research -- dropped dead in his lab. Tennant's team found out that he was poisoned with a massive amount of Thallium 8-10 hours before he died, which made things difficult. So, they retraced his steps, and while doing so, Ernie was communicated with someone on Cheng’s phone. He arranged a meeting with the unknown person, who ended up being a spy from New Zealand named David Sola (played Beulah Koale from Hawaii Five-0).
Things began to get complicated when Ernie found footage of Cheng having a long and intense meeting with Maggie Shaw shortly before his death. Maggie, who was a former CIA agent, has appeared before on the series before as Tennant’s family friend and mentor, so Tennant pressed her on the matter. Maggie said that Cheng had received a mysterious, ominous email that threatened his family if he didn’t cooperate with something, so he had asked for help. Maggie did reach out to her contacts and found out some information, but it was too late by the next morning.
Now, suspecting the MSS (the Chinese intelligence agency/secret police) of organizing Cheng’s death, Tennant’s team decided to work with Sola and found a similar MO in a case that he was working. Their first break came when they interviewed Myra Tan, an MSS agent already in custody. The team offered to extract Tan’s family from China if she would help. Liking her options, Tan gave up an MSS operation called Dark Moon. It was a secret operation where the MSS coerced Chinese nationals, who were already abroad, into doing dirty work by threating families back home.
The whole thing quickly became a mess because, thanks to DIA Agent Whistler, they found out that Bao was behind the plot. Apparently, Bao was a super high-level, spy from China who had eluded everything and everyone for years, despite his massive intelligence heists. The situation got worse when the MSS agents took Maggie hostage. Thankfully, they were able to rescue her, and everything seemed hunky-dory, until Sola discovered a timeline gap in the episode's final act.
The person that they arrested as Bao had been working in China as a street cop two years prior, but Bao was operating for years before that. As the episode ended, Tennant did some digging with Ernie and found out that Maggie’s recent trips all aligned with Bao’s operations. That’s not a confirmation, but it’s much more than a coincidence. So, either Maggie Shaw was working with Bao, or she's the master mind behind countless Chinese spy missions, while playing Tennant for a fool.
"Spies, Part 2" will show Tennant’s team investigating whether Maggie -- Tennant's family friend and mentor -- was a spy the whole time. Luckily, fans won’t have to wait long for that. "Spies, Part 2" will air during NCIS: Hawai’i’s normal Monday night slot, less than 24 hours after "Spies, Part 1."
To see Jane Tennant’s NCIS team investigate her former mentor, watch NCIS: Hawai’i this Monday night at 10 p.m. ET.