Tonight on CBS NCIS: airs with an all-new Tuesday, April 21, 2026, season 23 episode 18 called, “Bad Impressions” and we have your weekly NCIS recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS season 23 episode 18, “Reboot” as per the CBS synopsis, “The team races to help one of their own who has been framed for murder and caught in a widening conspiracy that could compromise national security.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM ET for our NCIS recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS Recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
In tonight’s NCIS episode, this thing with Kasie started as far back as 2010. Kasie was in college at the time. She began working on a personal project. No one else seemed to care about it. Not even her roommate Joanna. It was a three day weekend. The whole floor was partying and that included the roommate too.
Kasie didn’t finish Edna in college nor when she first got to NCIS. She’s been working on it for sixteen years. She finally completed her forensic program last week and she was about to sell it for possibly billions when someone stole it right from under her.
They didn’t just steal it. They kidnapped a family. They incited a murder. They’ve got blood on their hands. They really wanted the program and once Kasie explained it – it was quite valuable.
It was a suspect profiler. It took something as simple as a fingerprint and it didn’t matter if it was in the system or not. It would give genetic markers. It could also operate in the reverse direction. Take genetic markers to fake a fingerprint. It ended up doing that with Kasie. Kasie went to the startup to ask them who knew about the program and/or would want revenge.
They came up with a name. His name was Elliot Mueller. He was an in-house lawyer for the startup when he was fired over a salary dispute. It got so bad that he had to be physically thrown out of the building. He was a great suspect and a better victim because he was later found dead on the street. He was slashed with a box-cutter.
They found a fingerprint on the murder weapon that was left at the scene. It belonged to Kasie. It was impossible because Kasie has been with people all day. She didn’t have time to kill Mueller out of revenge. And yet someone wanted it to look that way.
Did someone want Kasie out of the way because she knew that Edna belonged to her? Or was this personal the whole time? Kasie didn’t know and neither did her team.
She was also thinking about the bigger picture. She knew that her fingerprints had been engineered. She never intended for the program to act that way. She now realizes how dangerous it was and that it could pose a bigger threat to National Security. Sam was still in town. He talked with Kasie. He told her now that she knows she can put in safeguards so that the program was never used in that way again.
Kasie was trying to rebuild Edna through memory. She also wrote most of the source code back in college in a notebook. She gave that notebook to Joanna. Only Joanna was more than a former roommate. They dated.
Kasie broke up with her. She broke Joanna’s heart and Joanna has no interest in helping her because of it. She slammed the door in Kasie’s face. She and Sam both had to knock several times before Sam said something inspired. He said that Kasie was prepared to apologize when she wasn’t.
Kasie still doesn’t think she was in the wrong. She threw herself into work. She always threw into work and in the process she lost Joanna. Joanna never figured out why Kasie kept pushing her away. It took much longer than it had to before she finally said she never thought she would good enough for Joanna.
Joanna lived in Upstate New York. Kasie and Sam thought it would be fine to go there and underestimated someone. They underestimated Joanna. She claimed to have thrown away Kasie’s stuff in anger. Joanna’s neighbor also called the cops on them. They were detained before they could escape.
The detective on Mueller’s case was already pursuing charges against Kasie. He said it must’ve involved money. Barbado was also still sniffing around and he kept claiming the Russians stole tech from the DOD’s mainframe. Somehow his ludicrous theory was closer to the truth than first assumed.
Mueller was working with a partner. The partner was sending messages to him from Helios Strategic group. They were private military contractors and someone used Edna to get pass a biometric system to steal a bunch of weapons.
The weapons were a decoy. They really wanted a file. The file detailed an joint op in the Middle East. It showed troop movements. It detailed the arsenal.
The person responsible for the file had placed it in his personal vault and they used Edna to steal it. The pentagon didn’t even know it had gotten stolen. Parker had to inform them. They think there might really be a mole inside of the DOD. Luckily, Joanna did keep Kasie’s notebook. She just lied earlier out of anger and she later handed the notebook over to Sam.
McGee and Harold rebuilt Edna. They reversed the fingerprint found on the murder weapon. It showed that it belonged to Barbado. It turns out he was the mole all along.
Its why he was so vocal about it. He knew it was true. Barbado was soon caught selling that file as well as Edna to the Russians. He was of Eastern Europe descent.
There’s no telling how long he’s been feeding them information. They still hit him with a car before they arrested him so they got their own back. And they got Kasie out of jail.
Kasie was cleared. She was given Edna back, but she decided to destroy it until the safeguards were in place. She now sees how dangerous it was in the wrong hands and she was just glad that it got Joanna talking to her again.
THE END!
