Tonight on CBS NCIS: Sydney airs with an all-new Tuesday, April 7, 2026, season 3 episode 14 called, “Death Card” and we have your weekly NCIS: Sydney recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS season 3 episode 14, “Death Card” as per the CBS synopsis, “The team is drawn into the mystical world of fortune telling when a tarot card is found near a drowned U.S. Naval officer depicting the exact manner of his death.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM ET for our NCIS Sydney recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS: Sydney Recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
In tonight’s NCIS:Sydney episode, a young boy found the body of a naval officer at the rocks by the ocean. He was looking for starfish. He found one and was returning it when he spotted a man faced down into the water. It looked like suicide. It felt off to Mackey. Mackey called in Doc Rosey and even he agreed with her.
The body has a means of stopping itself from drowning. The body preserves itself the best way it knows how. Which didn’t happen with Petty Officer First Class Sam Roberts. It was odd what happened to him so Mackey kept NCIS investigating.
They even reached out to a trained therapist in order to access Sam’s medical records. They wanted to know the state of his mental health. He was in Sydney for their Fleet Week. It meant he couldn’t have been too sick to get deployed, but something must have happened. Sam was due to retire from the ship soon.
He went out that night with his best friend that turned out to be his lover, Seamen Connor Walt. The two of them wanted to be together and that’s why Sam they could no longer work together.
The Navy has a rule against that kind of fraternization. Sam wasn’t that night. He and Conor went for a drink because they were celebrating starting a new chapter together.
They didn’t drink all that much. Only somehow Sam killed himself. Connor also tried to break into a stadium that night. He was arrested and detained when they told him that his best friend killed himself. Connor said that wasn’t like him. Mackey correctly guessed they were together. Connor has no memory of what happened that night or why he was breaking into the stadium.
They even asked Connor about the tarot card with Sam’s body that correctly guessed his death. Connor didn’t hesitated when he saw the card. He then said he’s never seen it before.
His memory really was a blank from that night. The question was why. They later received the therapist that said Sam wasn’t suicidal in the slightest. There was video of the event and the suicide didn’t make sense. The therapist saw the video too. He said something must have happened to induce the suicide because it was too clean. Sam didn’t try to fight the drowning in the slightest.
The therapist added that there were ways of manipulating someone into doing anything. Hypnosis, suggestion, and there were meds that could do the work for them. Sam’s tox screens hadn’t come back at the time. Not like Trigger who returned to work tonight. Trigger said those tarot cards were handmade. They weren’t bought. He had an ex-girlfriend that was big into tarot. Blue was tracking down who made them as the therapist expressed concern. He thought that Sam had been murdered and unfortunately he wasn’t the only victim.
Sam had taken out fifty bucks that night. It was enough to pay for two to get their tarot cards read by a “psychic”. The sign on the door said it was open and yet the door was locked. DeShawn noticed some blood on the door.
They pushed their way in. They smelled it before they saw it. They found the psychic in the bathtub with a hairdryer. She also had a tarot card predicting her death found on her body. The tarot cards were all the same and Blue found out they were created by a woman in prison.
Her name is Phoebe Bale. She was convicted for a double homicide in Budapest where she was extradited to Sydney to serve out the remainer of her sentence. Somehow, Phoebe got out.
The Warden had written her one of hell of a recommendation letter for early release. The poor Warden doesn’t remember writing the letter at all. She too had been brainwashed. The same for the psychic. Doc got the tox screen back. He said Phoebe must have used a gel found in regular motion sickness medication and synthesized it so that people are highly susceptible to her.
Phoebe even got JD as well. She pretended to be a cleaner when they were searching her apartment. She got JD to lower his guard and then drugged him. She escaped while he needed to be checked out by Doc. Phoebe tried to hide and Blue still found her in ring cameras getting picked up by a car
. The car was registered to William Drexlar. He merely pretended to be a therapist when the team first met him. Drexler was Phoebe’s handler back when she was working under him at DOJ. They came up with “enhanced interrogation” techniques for Operation Tarot.
Phoebe was a sociopath. She liked controlling people. Before she was recruited by the American government, she was a college professor. She used her methods on her students and forced them to hurt themselves. She got off on the power trip prior to being let go. Then Drexler found her.
She ended up killing two people in Budapest when she acted as their marriage counselor. Or at least that was the official story. Drexler cut her loose after that and so she managed to grab his attention by publicly killing an American sailor during Fleet Week.
It was all over the news. It lured Drexler to her location where she planned to get her revenge. She drugged him and she had drugged Connor. Connor was supposed to kill himself in front of American dignitaries at an Fleet Week event. It was supposed to be very public and embarrass the American government
. Connor was stopped before that could happen and DeShawn made sure to stop him again when he tried to go back to the stadium. As for Drexler, she drugged him to die via suicide by cop.
Trigger realized which card was missing from the tarot deck. He warned JD. JD managed to save Drexler’s life so Phoebe’s great revenge unraveled.
She was arrested for inciting Sam as well as the psychic into killing themselves. She was going to be put in solitary confinement. She knew her time was short so she started working on the guard that oversaw her transfer back to prison.
And something about her said she’ll be JD’s Moriarty to his Sherlock.
THE END!