[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS Season 22 Episode 14 “Close to Home.”]
Dr. Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen) took on a slightly different role for the case in the latest episode of NCIS: undercover operative. He also met a potential new love interest.
His daughter Victoria (Elle Graper) brings the case to the team, after finding a bag of cash (not where she initially said), to her uncle, Torres (Wilmer Valderrama). It led back to the Palmers’ neighborhood, and in order to catch a killer, Palmer went undercover by inviting his neighbors over to collect DNA off cups. There, he met a new neighbor, Wendy (Erinn Hayes), and the two got close — the team burst in on them making out — before it was revealed she might be the killer. (She wasn’t, but her father was a thief who had never been caught.) Might they have a future together? Well, once she was put in cuffs, even though she wasn’t guilty, there needed to be some cooling off. But Dietzen isn’t ruling out a future.
“Maybe that’s not it. Maybe he can actually ask her on a second date where they don’t have guns drawn on them. I don’t know. We’ll see,” he tells TV Insider.
Meanwhile, by the end of the episode, Victoria was more than happy that her dad was “just the ME” and the two were off to get ice cream together. Below, Dietzen discusses where Palmer is when it comes to his love life, where the episode left his character and his daughter Victoria, and much more.
I love the scene at the end in the elevator with Jimmy and Victoria and her change in what “just an ME” means. Jimmy feels much better about that, right? Like they’re in a much better place than they were, even though they already had a great relationship?
Brian Dietzen: Yeah. My daughter’s 17, and I just love her more than anything — and I love my son, my son’s 15, and they’re both kind of at that similar age. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. And so I was really feeling that a lot, the protective father thing that all dads go through and those precious connections. It doesn’t have to be running into dad’s arms to say, “I love you, and I was wrong the whole time, and you were right, and let’s all communicate more from now on.” A lot of it can be just said with a joke and with a smile, and man, that’s my person and we’re just really, really connected, and I feel really blessed that I have that in my life, and I’m really glad that Jimmy has it, too.
Robert Voets/CBS
Yeah, and he thought they’d invite the entire team, but she wanted it to just be them.
Yeah. Also, I’ve experienced this with my own kids where you’re trying to feel out, what do you want to do this weekend? What do you want to do on Friday night or Saturday night, whatever? Do you want to go out with friends? And you want to be the parent who’s letting them do what it is they want to do because they want to explore, they want to expand. This is a time when they should be going out and doing different things as teenagers, and I want to be a facilitator for all of that, and so does Jimmy. And to see that, “no, dad, if I had an option, what I want to do is hang out with you,” I mean, come on, what Dad doesn’t just go, “Oh gosh, don’t get emotional in front of her. Just be cool. Be cool.” And I love that last moment in the elevator.
Jimmy and Wendy are obviously complicated once she’s arrested, even though it turns out she’s not guilty. But I’m curious: He is putting himself back out there, but is he ready for another serious relationship like he had with Knight (Katrina Law)? Is he trying to figure that out?
It’s interesting. I’m not sure. I think he’s trying to figure it out. I think he’s trying to — as he’s trying to do it, it’s not really working very well, whether he was on the app previously or he’s meeting this person in the wild, not on a platform of any sort, and yet there’s still the person that he knows he loves that’s sitting at that desk that he passes by every day. And even at the end of this episode, she does say to him, “We’re still family. That means something.” That means a lot, especially to a guy like Jimmy who’s really family centric. So I think there might be some battles there between, do I want to try and move on to someone else, or is there ever a time when we would re-explore this thing as well? And I don’t have those answers, obviously.
This episode keeps bringing up their past relationship because everyone knew they were together in the community, and it led to awkward moments. When I talked to you and Katrina earlier this season, you guys talked about how much you love those awkward moments and they’re fun. Are there more of those coming up? What can you say?
Absolutely. Yeah, there will be more awkward moments, and we’re so happy that we got picked up for our 23rd season, so it’ll definitely be going into next year. But even in this episode, I just love, whether awkward or not, there’s just example after example of how they actually work well together as people, as friends, which I think is the start and the foundation of any healthy relationship: Do you like the person spending time with them? Not, are you romantically swept off your feet sort of thing, but do you connect as people? And the fact that she’s there for him and he can talk about his daughter or the fact they go into that guard’s office and she could just without a word tell him exactly what to do, and they have that communication ability, I love the way these two characters work, and whether they’re romantically involved or not, I, for one, just want to see more stuff with them together because I think great scenes come out of it and it’s fun to do. And I mean, I think it goes without saying by now because I’ve sung her praises for so long, but Katrina Law is just an incredible human and a wonderful actor to work with. I love having scenes together with her.
So is anything coming up as going to lean in one direction or the other for the rest of the season for them, or is that going to be like, we’ll see in Season 23?
The reality is we are shooting our 18th episode, so we still have two more to go after this one, and I don’t know yet. I don’t know. I’m told that that is in the ether that’s going around, but I don’t know what the scenes are or what’s going to happen. I think both Katrina and I are kind of in the dark on that stuff, but when we do get our stuff together, we tend to have a great time.
With whom does Jimmy have the most significant conversation coming up?
We’ve got some great stuff coming up between Jimmy and Parker [Gary Cole]. I know that there’s some stuff that’s kind of teed up for Parker’s journey and going into the finale as well, this whole thing of going from last year’s finale into this year’s premiere, and then a couple times during this season where he keeps seeing this young woman that seems almost ghostlike or apparition-like. Jimmy’s going to help him out with that journey as well, so it’s going to be some kind of cool stuff happening.
Are we going to see Jimmy outside of autopsy again soon?
I certainly hope so, and I think so, yes, absolutely. I think we’re going to get to see Jimmy use some other talents other than picking up our dead bodies.
Do you think Erinn Hayes could come back?
I think absolutely she could come back. I think it would be wonderful because whether it’s something that’s getting in between Jimmy and Jess getting back together, or if it’s something that Jimmy is genuinely exploring and saying, I really do now want to move on from this thing, it’s an interesting storyline. Also, our show is a wonderful procedural about solving crimes and real crimes for our servicemen and women and this sort of stuff. While it’s so great, it serves as a B story that moves alongside the main storylines. So whenever we can make those B storylines a little more interesting, I’m all here for it. As I said, I’m a huge fan of Erinn and we’re very close friends. I’d love to see her come back and work again, and the crew certainly had a great time with her. She’s a hell of a talent.
Oh, and for that matter, I would obviously love to have Elle back as well. Every time she comes and visits us, she’s not just Jimmy’s daughter, she’s NCIS‘s daughter. So anytime she can come back, we would love to have her.
NCIS, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS