‘NCIS’ Brings Back Familiar Face in an Unwanted Way

NCIS fans were shocked to see the return of a familiar face in the Monday, Feb. 25 episode of the CBS procedural — and even more shocked to see how the former villain’s return was tied into a brand new investigation. This article contains spoilers for NCIS Season 22 Episode 13, “Bad Blood.”

The NCIS team started off “Bad Blood” investigating the murder of a Navy lieutenant, who was killed while trying to subdue a man named Fred Sammons who had destroyed numerous blood samples at a blood bank in order to hide the theft of a specific sample belonging to Lauren Hawthorn.

Seeking out Hawthorn, the team made the grisly discovery of her skeletal remains in a barrel of acid at her home. But could Hawthorn’s murder be tied to her work at Life Sequence, a company that caters health plans to their clients’ DNA? The NCIS team certainly had their suspicions when they learned that the Life Sequence CEO was none other than Fletcher Voss (TJ Thyne), who previously was involved in the assassination attempt on Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) in the series’ 1,000th episode, “A Thousand Yards.”

Voss revealed that he had only had to serve three months in prison for his crimes and had started Life Sequence with the money he made from selling Bandium. He had also been involved with Hawthorn, whom the team learns was pregnant with their child before her murder. But Voss truly seems shocked at the news that Hawthorn is pregnant, and soon after suffers a hemorrhagic stroke, ruling him out as a suspect in her murder.

The team’s investigation determines that Voss has been drinking smoothies spiked with a blood thinner by Life Sequence’s chief doctor, Donovan, who was scared that he’d be outed as a fraud when the company’s programming went live. Hawthorn’s death was an accident, it turns out, as she had been drinking some of Voss’ smoothies and had a bad reaction between the blood thinner and another medication she was taking.

With Donovan’s plan uncovered, the doctor is arrested, and Voss is saved by a blood transfusion from none other than Timothy McGee (Sean Murray). McGee makes sure to twist the knife a little by telling Voss the blood transfusion was Vance’s idea, but the tech CEO appears to be a changed man, telling McGee that they’re blood brothers from that point forward. What did you think of Voss’ return to NCIS?

NCIS airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.