‘NCIS’ Cliffhanger Ending Shocks Fans During Latest Episode

NCIS did not joke around with the shocking end of its latest episode, and fans were left in a panic on social media.

The CBS crime procedural took on a tragic cold case from 1989 in which a teenage boy died after mysteriously ingesting poison he presumably got from eating an ice cream cone he bought from a visiting truck.

Before a flashback opening, the show went back to the present to Kasie (Diona Reasonover) facing her nerves as she has to testify in court. Turns out, her weekend job of putting cold case DNA into the system resulted in a match that lead to solving the murder.

Kasie admits she is feeling the pressure to say the right things, so as to get the killer behind bars after all this time. Gibbs (Mark Harmon) puts the pressure on even more when he says the case is not about winning or losing, but about justice.

The case takes a shocking turn when at the beginning of the trial the defense advocates for privacy as the case has captured much media attention. His request leads the boy’s father, Kyle Larson (Cooper Huckabee) to lose control and start to scream, with Gibbs and a security guard having to restrain him and take him out of the courtroom.

Bishop (Emily Wickersham) begins with her testimony and seems confident that the evidence will lead to the suspect’s conviction. After a video tape of an interview, Sloane (Maria Bello) detailed the psychological reasoning behind why the truck driver might have poisoned the children all those years in the past. His defense attorney advocates that he could not be guilty of the crime since he has no criminal record, but Sloane says one crime can be enough for some criminals.

The case took a turn during court when the defense attorney revealed new evidence that made the DNA evidence and the team’s testimonies inadmissible, leading to a mistrial. The judge and the prosecutor then reveal to Gibbs’ that the DNA they tested was mistakenly added to their records, and that mistake cost the justice system this case.

The twist forces the team to start from scratch with the investigation.

As the team gets to work, the murder suspect is shown walking in the dark after being set free, and he is murdered by a shadowy figure in his car. The next morning, Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) seems happy to see the suspected child killer dead. However, the inconsistencies with the body lead them to suspect the boy’s father might have killed the suspect.

The team struggles to investigate the man’s murder, knowing his history. However, they realize they must take their personal feelings aside in the name of justice.

As the evidence to Kyle or his daughter, Kasie finds they will need a tech company’s help getting the dead man’s computer files that were recently wiped clean. The solution was an issue, as McGee (Sean Murray) had just been arrested for poking around their data for a government secret, on Gibbs’ and Vance’s orders.

After the team uses the information provided by the tech company, they find the court’s bailiff killed the murderer after he was set free. To make matters worse, he was paid with the money from the secret bank account. The episode ended with a massive cliffhanger when Gibbs and Vance get to the CIA agent’s home and finds him dead with a shot in his chest, accompanied only by Vance’s ex-girlfriend, who had just betrayed him.

“It’s not what you think,” she said as the episode came to a tragic end.

“Someone’s coming for Gibbs. I wonder if this could bring Ziva out of hiding,” one user wondered.

“WHAT????? I’m just standing on the edge of a cliff right now?!?” another user commented.

“If we could stop trying to shoot Gibbs that be great too,” a third fan commented.

NCIS airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.