‘NCIS: New Orleans’ Fans Flood Social Media After Shalita Grant’s Final Episode

NCIS: New Orleans fans were not ready for Sonja Percy’s final episode.

During Tuesday’s new episode, Percy (Shalita Grant) and LaSalle (Lucas Black) went undercover at a high-stakes, underground poker game after the organizer (Lucy Walters) targets players with access to a naval research laboratory.

The episode, appropriately titled “High Stakes,” gave fans one last team mission between will-they-won’t-they couple Percy and LaSalle before Grant’s exit from the series.

From the start of the episode, the other members of the team were wondering if Percy had taken a job with the FBI, but a new case kept them occupied until Sonja showed up at the crime scene and announced she had turned it down.

Later in the episode, however, Percy gets herself in a sticky situation by volunteering to go undercover, but still identifying as an NCIS agent to lure a killer at a high-stakes poker game.

As Percy taunted the players, she’s approached by the suspect who decides to cover her bet if she won. Once she loses, a man named Henry Chen lets Percy know she kidnapped LaSalle and will hurt him if she doesn’t help him break into the naval research lab.

Percy successfully gets her captors into the naval base, but as she drives them to the site of a satellite launch they mean to stop, she realizes the only reason she decided not to leave the team was to not let them down, so she disarms her captor and starts to drive recklessly. The team rescues LaSalle as Pride (Scott Bakula) chases down Percy’s car, after the car overturns, Pride shoots Percy’s captor before he can hurt her.

With the case closed, Percy reveals to Pride she changed her mind and decided to take the job for the FBI. Pride tells her she’s a terrific agent and he’ll miss her, as Percy hands in her badge, as the rest of the team looks from the inside.

Percy says her last goodbye to the rest of the team, including sharing an emotional hug with LaSalle after the discuss what would have happened if they had ever dated.

NCIS: New Orleans fans, many not even aware of Grant’s exit, which was first reported in January, poured their hearts out on social media after seeing Percy walk away from the show.

Grant recurred as Percy, a former ATF agent recruited to the NCIS unit, in the show’s first season. She was promoted to series regular for the second, third and fourth seasons. Grant’s final episode will be the 17th episode of season four, scheduled to air April 3.

“It’s just time for a change,” Grant’s manager Didi Rea told Variety in January. “This is about moving on to the next great thing.”

NCIS: New Orleans also stars Scott Bakula, Lucas Black, Rob Kerkovich, CCH Pounder, Daryl “Chill” Mitchell and Vanessa Ferlito.

The series airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on CBS.