"David and I have been talking about it for months, and he’s been preparing for it, and it’s really going to give his character a new perspective on life coming back from what he experienced." Īlong with Ducky, the rest of the team could be in danger after the explosion, while the terrorist Harper Dearing ( Richard Schiff) still is on the loose. The ending scene with Ducky's heart attack was planned for a long time. The one difference in the approach in this season was we wanted to deliver a true cliffhanger". According to Glasberg, " NCIS has historically done these end arcs or established a villain that carries through for a few episodes, and this one is really no different in that respect. The ninth season ended dramatically, with many unknown fates. "Till Death Do Us Part" is written by Gary Glasberg and directed by Tony Wharmby. Richard Schiff guest starred as the terrorist Harper Dearing. Ducky receives a phone call about the attack and is asked to autopsy the bodies, but the shock and stress of the call causes him to have a heart attack and collapse alone on a beach, leaving everyone's fates unknown. Cole attempts to defuse the bomb but is killed in the process (assumed), when the bomb detonates, while receiving a phone call indicating the bomb was for revenge against the Navy due to the death of his son, Evan, (revealed in "Up in Smoke") damaging part of the NCIS building with Gibbs and his team still inside. Back at headquarters, analyzing the call makes the team realize there is a bomb in Vance's car, installed when he was abducted, meant to blow up NCIS Headquarters at the Navy Yard and the whole building is evacuated. The former calls and tells Cole to relay a message to Gibbs that he was never interested in Director Vance and is really interested in justice. It initially seems to have worked when Dearing tells Cole to meet him a cafe retired Navy officers attend, but Dearing doesn't show up to the meeting and instead leaves a phone for Cole. Gibbs decides to recruit convicted former officer Jonathan Cole based on Ryan's profiling of Dearing to lure him into a trap. However, Jimmy asks Breena to advance the wedding so he could return to assist with the case and so his friends could be there. Meanwhile, Jimmy is nervous on whether or not to go through with the marriage with everything going on and with no one else being able to attend, but Ducky tells him to go through with it, and that he will join him. Samantha Ryan by threatening her son and forcing her to flee when he buys out a judge to release her ex-husband on a technicality. However, Dearing blows up the agent's house and leaves them a videotaped message, soon confronting Pentagon profiler Dr. After picking him up, the team finds another message with a horse jaw that leads them to a retired NCIS agent who handled a case that sent Dearing's son to the destroyer that claimed his life.
After investigating Vance's car, the team locates Vance at a family plot where Vance finds himself in a crypt, next to the body of a sailor killed along with the son of industrialist-turned-terrorist Harper Dearing. With Director Leon Vance reported missing, the NCIS team is called out to where his car has been found unoccupied. In the episode, NCIS is threatened by terrorism while Jimmy Palmer's wedding occurs. The episode is written by Gary Glasberg and directed by Tony Wharmby, and was seen by 19.05 million viewers. It originally aired on CBS in the United States on May 15, 2012. " Till Death Do Us Part" is the 24th and final episode of the ninth season of the American police procedural drama NCIS, and the 210th episode overall.