‘NCIS’ Season 20: Everything We Know About the Raven
NCIS is officially back for season 20. And in the special two-hour premiere — which also happened to be a crossover event with NCIS: Hawai’i for the spinoff’s season 2 premiere — the series revealed the identity of its latest big bad, The Raven. Who is this villain, and how did the team take him down? Here’s what we know.
‘NCIS’ Season 20 picked up right where last season left off
The new season of NCIS picked up right where the season 19 finale left us — Alden Parker (Gary Cole) is on the run with his ex-wife Vivian (Teri Polo) after being framed for the murder of his old FBI partner.
While Jessica Knight (Katrina Law), Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama), Tim McGee (Sean Murray) remained loyal to their new team leader, they did what they could to slow down guiding FBI agent Wayne Sweeney’s (Erik Passoja) investigation.
Meanwhile, Hawai’i’s Jane Tennant (Vanessa Lachey) and Ernie Malik (Jason Antoon) arrived to provide protection service for the Navy’s RIMPAC training event. It’s Jane and Ernie who inform the Washington DC team while transporting prisoner Herman Maxwell that he has a connection to The Raven — a mysterious Russian gangster who’s been framing Parker.
Here’s everything we know about The Raven
While NCIS is transporting Maxwell, there is an ambush from The Raven’s followers and he is taken. This is when Parker realizes that Maxwell is The Raven, and flashes him a cheeky smile before he’s taken.
Fans found out that The Raven has been out for revenge for a while, and was behind most of the chaos the NCIS team had faced since last season. And, he was doing all of this from a prison cell.
Maxwell developed a vendetta against Parker after the former FBI agent took him down, and made it his goal to humiliate him and ruin his career. This was the reason Parker was framed for his partner’s murder.
The Raven finally gets taken down on ‘NCIS’?
The agents also discovered that Maxwell — played by Michael Weston — had bigger plans than just framing Parker. He wanted to launch an attack on RIMPAC in Oahu, the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise.
When they traveled to Hawaii to put a stop to The Raven’s plan, the team found his private jet. Inside, there were dead bodies everywhere, and a video from Maxwell that teased the attack. Torres and Tennant were also made hostages, with Maxwell holding a dead man’s switch.
Luckily, Agent Knight — along with Kai Holman (Alex Tennant) and Bam-Bam (Cher Alvarez) from team Hawai’i — disarmed a nearby signal booster for the bomb, preventing the attack.
The special two-hour premiere ended with Maxwell being taken away, and Parker’s nightmare hopefully coming to an end. However, the storyline with his ex Vivian wasn’t resolved. We know she was working with The Raven, and his entire operation has yet to be taken down. There’s a really good chance fans haven’t seen the last of this villain.
NCIS and NCIS: Hawaii air Monday nights on CBS.
