Tonight on CBS NCIS: New York airs with an all-new Tuesday, October 6 2026, season 1 episode 1 called, “Pilot” and we have your weekly NCIS: New York recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS season 1 episode 1, “Pilot” as per the CBS synopsis, “After years of special assignments and covert ops, Special Agent Sam Hanna (LL COOL J) returns to his hometown of New York City for a brand-new mission.
When Sam’s friend and Navy reservist Jack Halloway is found dead, he requests permission from Assistant Special Agent-In-Charge Robyn Wells (Jennifer Beals) to investigate his friend’s death.
Robyn pairs Sam with roguish agent Nick Schaeffer (Scott Caan), who introduces him to the rest of the team: clean-cut Wyatt Sellers (Shane Harper), bright-eyed Addy Ross (Jacqueline Byers) and hacker-turned-computer guy Sean Sullivan (Devin Druid). As the team investigates Jack’s death, they work together to gather key information that can help find the culprits”
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In tonight’s NCIS: New York episode, NCIS Special Agent Sam Hanna was back in the game. He’s been running his own team. It mostly operated overseas. Yet, he was returning to being an agent back on American soil tonight. Sam had been overseas when he missed several calls from a good friend by the name of Jack Halloway.
The calls were so disruptive that he got caught lifting a glass. It was a basic move that he was kicking himself for because it nearly got him killed on the job. The bad guy followed him back to the hotel. He had his men attack Sam. He nearly shot Sam himself. Sam killed him and knocked out the guards when he finally got around to returning his friend’s call.
It had come too late. Jack Halloway was dead by then. He died in what looked like suicide. It was just Sam who doubted it and that was in spite of the last message Jack sent him. Jack left behind a voicemail. He said he was in trouble. He got in over his head. He sounded despondent. Then the next thing Sam hears is that Jack is dead.
He shot himself. The gun was found in his hand and the gun residue on said hand. It was just Sam who felt it couldn’t be possible. He known Jack all his life. Jack’s dad had been a close friend. And Sam promised to look after Jack once his friend passed.
Sam was the best man at Jack’s wedding. Jack and his wife were expecting their first child. It didn’t make sense that he would kill himself now that he has so much to look forward to. Sam pushed for an investigation. he also wanted to be included in the team investigating it. He’s put a lot of time into NCIS as well as the Navy.
He’s earned a few favors so Assistant Special Agent in Charge Robyn Wells agreed to let him work it with her team. They seemed to be a very jokester atmosphere. Sam wasn’t in that mindset right now and less so when he was proven right.
Jimmy did the autopsy. He determined that Sam had been right. It wasn’t suicide. It was murder. Jack was killed by someone aiming down below at him and they accidentally shot him on the wrong side. The nondominant one. There’s no way he could kill himself with his nondominant hand or reach around to kill himself on the furthest side from his dominant hand. It made no sense.
It couldn’t be done by the man himself and that at least confirmed with Sam that he had been right. Jack didn’t kill himself. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that he never mentioned the voicemail to anyone.
Not even his new team. Nick, Addy, Wyatt (who also went by Milk), and Sean. Sean didn’t want to be there. He got caught hacking into the Police Pension Fund and now has to work for NCIS as their computers’ guy as a means of staying out of prison. It helps that he didn’t steal from the fund. He merely hacked into it to see if he could. Sean was giving off attitude because he genuinely didn’t want to be there at first. Wells had to have a talk with him. She told him to do his job properly or face prison. And that moved the keyboard.
It wasn’t long before they found out why Jack had been killed. Jack was a Navy Reservist. He didn’t want to become a field agent or become a SEAL like his dad because he wanted different things. He wanted to be home long enough to start a family and play an active part in it. He couldn’t do that as a full member of the Navy.
The Navy demands a lot from people. It was often too much for those they have to leave behind for months on end. Jack has been one of those people so he chose to go to the Reservist route and make money as a tugboat captain in the meantime.
He still wanted to serve his country. He also wanted most time to start a family and he was about to have a little girl. The tugboat business pays well. He was earning six figures. Nick assumed that the tugboat was being used to smuggle in illegal stuff. Sam disagreed. He said Jack wasn’t like that. He could be wrong only he wasn’t. Again.
Sam knew Jack too well to not know that Jack would never cross that line. His friend/second-in-command would. The guy’s name is Dave Ballerini. Ballerini joined a dating app to meet beautiful women overseas. He met Katrina from Belarus.
They were talking for a year when suddenly she gets kidnapped right before he could bring her over. The kidnappers tell him that he had to do what they said or else they’d kill her. Ballerini was an idiot that got catfished. He helped smuggle in people. They were working for a Russian oligarch who was in a feud with another oligarch.
Hence he sent his people to abduct his rival’s daughter. Ballerini didn’t just get catfished. He rented a van for them. He hid them at his cousin’s closed down nightclub in Brooklyn.
The team was too late to stop the young woman’s abduction. Thankfully, the men were coming back to the nightclub with the girl so Sam suggested they lay in waiting. The plan worked because the team is good. Everyone played their part. This went for Sean as well. He stepped up in a big way on this case.
The stakes were high with a missing girl so Sean didn’t joke about it until it was all clear. They rescued the girl. They killed the kidnapping team. Ballerini was going to prison for the part he played because he snuck those people past Jack. And they killed Jack to cover up being in the city.
This along with the girl’s security team were all going to be pinned on Ballerini. One way or another. The only thing he did over a fake woman was get Sam to return to New York.
He’s resisted joining another team after the last one died. He was now ready to teach some newbies how its done. He joined the New York Field Office.
THE END!
