NCIS' Sean Murray & Gary Cole Open Up About How Parker Is Fitting In With The Team

Sean Murray and Gary Cole are opening up about the casting shakeup that happened in the current season of NCIS.

The season kicked off by seeing long-time star Mark Harmon leave the agency and his character of Gibbs behind just after a few episodes in, with Gary stepping into the team as Aldon Parker.

As Parker was hired into the agency, fans had different opinions of his character, and how much the show would be different without Mark.

Now, the two stars are opening up about the transition.

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“Parker came in a very different character than Gibbs,” Sean, who plays Agent Timothy McGee, shared with TV Insider. “Anyone who comes in is going to have to live up to a lot of expectations.”

He added that since Parker is fully integrated into the team, “I think we have something different going on. Instead of family structure with a paternal figure, [we’ve] got something where it’s more equal.”

Gary added that the show’s writers were really smart in how they had Parker butt heads with the team at the start.

“They actually wrote a moment that was not just for the team in the squad room but for the audience when Parker said, ‘I know this is weird. OK, I get it, but we’ve gotta get past this so we can get the job done…’” he shared. “That was a way for the writers to send the signal to the viewers that yes, this was going to be different but also familiar because the show has been on for so long and has worked on so many different levels. My hat’s off to the writers. It wasn’t an easy task to figure out how to do that.”

In tonight’s all-new episode, “Last Dance”, an infamous arms dealer, Reymundo Diaz, is released from prison and bodies start piling up, Torres is forced to face the repercussions of his actions during an undercover operation he worked on years ago.

NCIS airs TONIGHT, Monday, April 18 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.