The following contains spoilers for NCIS Season 19, Episode 21, "Birds of a Feather," which aired Monday, May 23 on CBS.
When Leroy Jethro Gibbs left only a few episodes into NCIS Season 19, all eyes were on his successor, former FBI agent Alden Parker. At first fans were hesitant to embrace the character as the new NCIS boss, as they would have been with anyone replacing someone as beloved as Gibbs. However, as the season progressed, Parker came into his own. Every week, fans learned a little bit more about the Star Trek-loving special agent who's similar to Gary Cole's Office Space character.
The Season 19 finale, however, might change viewers' perspective on him. "Birds of a Feather" opened on the NCIS team working on human resources paperwork. Although the forms were annoying for everyone, Parker needed substantially more of them than anyone else, which signified his complicated past. The episode detailed what happened when that past came back to haunt him.
Parker's paperwork was interrupted because Kasie sent an urgent notification. Someone had emailed pictures of a kidnapping to NCIS' tip line -- and the victim was his ex-wife Vivian Kolchak. Though they were no longer together and she had also gotten a new job (working for the Defense Department on a task force studying UFOs), they were still close. It was clear that the kidnapper wanted Parker to know that they had taken Vivian, but his list of potential enemies was too long to narrow down the possibilities.
Vivian's phone records proved that she had called and visited Parker's father, with whom he had a strained relationship. While there, Vivian mentioned that she was going for a run at a particular place, which led Parker and his team to the crime scene, where they found chewed sunflower seeds. The DNA on the seeds was a match to Parker's old FBI partner -- but when the team went to confront him, they found the man dead in his garage. Parker admitted to visiting the night before... and things started to get complicated when his DNA was discovered under the dead man's fingernails.
As a federal investigator, Parker would have known to clean a victim's fingernails, so it was obvious that someone was framing him, while also having kidnapped his ex-wife. NCIS pointed out to viewers that the optics were terrible, especially since the Deputy Director of the FBI still held a grudge against Parker. Vivian shockingly turned back up, just in time to see her ex-husband being investigated for murder. But where had she been?
As "Birds of a Feather" wrapped up, the NCIS team discovered that the person behind everything was The Raven. He nearly killed Jimmy and Kasie earlier in Season 19, and now the criminal was ruining Parker's reputation. On top of that, Vance had to turn the case over to the FBI because of Parker being the prime suspect. However, his teammates played dumb and let Parker and Vivian get away while McGee, the possibly departing Torres and Knight kept covertly investigating. They had embraced Parker as part of their team and were willing to risk their jobs for him.
That would have been a sentimental way to end the episode, but it took a dark turn in the last 30 seconds. As Parker and Vivian were driving off, Vivian sent a text that proved that she was in on the plot. Parker was completely unaware that his biggest enemy was sitting right next to him, and viewers will have to wait until Season 20 to see how he gets out of this predicament or if NCIS could be looking for another new leader.
NCIS airs on Monday at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. Season 20 will debut this fall on CBS.