‘NCIS’ Boss Explains Vance’s Shocking Death in Episode 500

“There have always been real stakes,” NCIS executive producer Steven D. Binder tells TV Insider of the jaw-dropping ending to the milestone 500th episode.

With the agency shut down, Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) refuses to back down from protecting it to the very end, including from a bomb set to destroy key evidence — but he doesn’t have all the facts at the time. What follows is one of the most shocking endings to an NCIS episode yet. And so we, of course, had to get some answers from Binder. Warning: Spoilers for NCIS Episode 500 (Season 23 Episode 13) ahead!

The bomb doesn’t go off, but what Vance doesn’t know is that the Army CID agent — NCIS was folded into that agency — with him is also part of the smuggling ring the disbanded team, reunited to help someone Gibbs (Mark Harmon) did back in the show’s second ever episode, “Hung Out to Dry”; Billy Fuentes’ (Austin Marques) is accused of murder, but, as they determine, she’s innocent and being framed by the ring, including the CID director. The CID agent shoots Vance, and while at first, it looks like he was wearing a vest, that wasn’t actually the case. Instead, the gunshot wounds prove to be fatal, and Vance dies, in an episode 18 seasons after Rocky Carroll joined the series.

As Carroll told us as part of our video postmortem (watch here), it wasn’t his choice. So, why did NCIS kill off Vance?

“On the one hand, NCIS is a quirky character-based procedural. But on the other hand, there have always been real stakes, perhaps as best embodied by what happened to Agent Todd [Sasha Alexander] in the Season 2 finale,” executive producer Steven D. Binder tells us. “It is never easy to say goodbye to any of our characters, but we wanted to honor Rocky and his legacy on the show as best as we could — in this case, giving his life so his agency could live.”

Carroll recalled to us how Binder told him his idea for Episode 500, ending with, “In the process of saving the agency, he loses his life. It’s a great story. You want to hear more?” As the star told it, “It was basically presented to me that the studio and the network wanted to do something really spectacular, really big, and something that would really send shockwaves through the NCIS fan base and the community. … When they did tell me the whole plot line and the story, my first thought completely candidly was, it’s actually a terrific story. It’s going to be a great, shocking story.”

Guiding Vance along his journey and to make it a bit easier, standing in for the Angel of Death, was none other than Adam Campbell as young Ducky, first as a mystery man (Adhir Kalyan) before revealing his true face.

“You don’t need a special reason to bring back Adam Campbell. The man is a rock star. However, in this case, Ducky was actually not the first choice, simply because we lost David [McCallum] in real life and he was gone. It never crossed my mind that we could bring Ducky back,” Binder admits. “And there was a short list of candidates. But then I happened to catch one of the Young Ducky episodes on Paramount+, and the moment I saw Adam’s face, I realized what it needed to be.”

The episode ends with Ducky pointing out the legacy that Vance has left behind. After his murder, it’s revealed that the Army CID director fudged the numbers, and that’s why NCIS had been shut down. With that corrected, NCIS is back up and running, the team returns to work, and Parker (Gary Cole) un-retires.

Looking ahead, “The team will be grieving, of course,” Binder says. “But we felt it important that, at the end of the episode, the team is just as focused on Vance’s sacrifice as they are on their loss. Vance died to protect them all. And they are going to honor that by putting one foot in front of the other, and just continuing on their mission to protect and safeguard their country.”

What did you think of NCIS killing off Vance in the 500th episode? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS