'NCIS' Season 23 finale: Who is Mateo? Torres may be in danger as gunshot rings out in closing moments
‘NCIS’ Season 23 ended on an explosive cliffhanger. The long-running series concluded its latest chapter with a moment that will stay with fans all summer long. The episode titled ‘Sons and Daughters’ aired on May 12 on CBS and was directed by José Clemente Hernandez. The finale centered on parent-child relationships, as the deceased Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) returned in flashback scenes to guide his daughter, Kayla (Naomi Grace). However, it was Timothy McGee's (Sean Murray) dynamic with his estranged son, Mateo (Patrick Keleher), that took center stage in the final moments of the episode.
In Episode 12, titled 'In Too Deep,' which aired on March 17, McGee learned that he had an 18-year-old son, Mateo, from his ex-girlfriend, Olivia Garcia (Elena Goode). Mateo returns in the finale to take a tour of the NCIS office and tells his father that he isn't interested in an internship at the NCIS. However, Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) immediately senses that something's off when Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen) mentions Mateo using a workstation to fill out the application, which doesn't show up in the system. Torres catches up with the young man in an alley to ask him what he was doing at the workstation and confronts him about lying. Mateo shocks Torres when he reveals that he has a gun.
But what he says next leaves him concerned. "Turn around and walk away. They could be watching," he says cryptically. Torres urges him not to fire the gun, but the scene cuts as a gunshot is heard. Who was shot? More importantly, who pulled the trigger? Mateo, Torres, or a third party watching the scene unfold, as Mateo had warned? Right after the finale, showrunner Steven D. Binder offered some clarity on the fate of the two characters. While speaking to TV Insider, he assured fans that another character won't be killed this season, although "someone was hit." He added that whoever was shot will survive the incident, "I sort of had my fill this season, all of us, of killing people. So I can rule that out," he said.
Great news! But fans are left with several questions about Mateo's true motives. Binder further explained to TVLine that Mateo's frightened reaction suggests that he's not the real mastermind, as he seems to be "in over his head." He added that he has other plans for the character. "It just doesn’t feel right to me to give McGee a son and have the son be truly evil. I don’t want to see that. I want to see a father and a son have some problems." 'NCIS' Season 24 will return with all the answers this fall on CBS.
