23 seasons in and NCIS is still pulling off genuine surprises. That’s not nothing. Most shows are running on fumes by season ten. This one just dropped a season finale that had fans completely losing their minds online, and now Wilmer Valderrama is out here making it worse in the best possible way, teasing what’s coming when the show returns this fall.
He spoke recently with People.com, and while he wasn’t exactly handing out spoilers, what he did say was more than enough to send the fan base into another spiral.
Season Finale Left Fans Completely Stunned
Let’s talk about what actually happened in Sons and Daughters, because if you watched it live you know exactly how that final sequence felt.
Nick Torres and Mateo, the son of Timothy McGee, end up in a confrontation that escalates fast. Weapons come out. A shot is fired. And then the NCIS Season 23 finale just… ends. No resolution, no reaction shot, no indication of who’s standing and who isn’t. Just credits.
The response online was immediate and loud. Fan forums, social media threads, comment sections, everybody had a theory and nobody had answers. That’s the kind of ending that keeps a show in the conversation all summer, and NCIS stuck the landing perfectly.
Wilmer Valderrama Season 24 Tease Has Fans Talking
When Valderrama sat down with People.com, he walked a careful line between saying enough to be interesting and giving away anything that actually matters.
He confirmed that someone gets hit in that final exchange. That much he was willing to put on the record. Everything else, specifically who it is and what happens next, he kept firmly to himself.
What he did open up about was the bigger picture. The writers, he said, are always looking at how to keep the show from settling into comfortable patterns. Surprising the audience matters to them. Keeping the series moving in directions viewers don’t necessarily see coming is a priority, not an afterthought.
And then he dropped the part that really got people’s attention: NCIS Season 24 could bring significant new cast additions and storyline changes that push things in a genuinely new direction. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.
NCIS Renewal Means the Answers Are Actually Coming
Here’s the good news for anyone who has been stress-eating since that finale aired.
CBS already renewed NCIS for Season 24 earlier this year, which means the cliffhanger resolution is guaranteed. It’s happening. Torres and Mateo and that gunshot are all going to get addressed, and based on Valderrama‘s comments, what comes after might be just as surprising as the cliffhanger itself.
The renewal also keeps the broader NCIS franchise moving forward, and that franchise has earned the right to feel good about itself. The flagship series has been on the air since 2003, has outlasted countless competitors, and is still generating genuine water cooler moments deep into its third decade. That’s a track record very few shows can touch.
Season 24 Changes Sound Bigger Than Usual
Most shows returning from a cliffhanger spend their premiere episode cleaning up the mess and then settling back into familiar rhythms. Based on what Valderrama is saying, that might not be the plan here.
Fresh cast additions, shifting team dynamics, writers who sound like they have something real to say this year — that’s a better set of ingredients than most shows can claim heading into their 24th season. Nobody knows yet whether NCIS Season 24 will be the show’s strongest run in years, but nothing about the early signals suggests they’re playing it safe.
Nick Torres is at the center of all of it. His fate coming out of that confrontation with Mateo will set the emotional tone for everything that follows, and however the writers resolve it, the ripple effects are going to be felt across the whole team.
When Is NCIS Coming Back?
A hard premiere date is still to come, but NCIS is returning this fall on CBS and that’s enough for now. Between here and there, the fan base has an entire summer to dissect that final gunshot frame by frame and debate whether Torres survives to see Season 24 or whether something far more dramatic is coming.
Valderrama knows the answer. He’s just not telling.
NCIS returns this fall on CBS. All 23 seasons are streaming now on Paramount+.
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