The NCIS-Verse’s 1,000th Episode: How Many Easter Eggs Did You Find?

CBS NCIS on Monday night delivered the franchise’s 1,000th total episode, including any and all spinoffs. What Easter eggs did writer Christopher J. Waild scatter throughout the hour, for longtime fans to find?

The milestone episode, “A Thousand Yards,” took its wink-wink title from Kasie’s finding that the sniper who shot Vance at his late wife’s grave site in the cold open was that far a distance away.

The first callback to the first NCIS episode, that I noticed at least, was McGee geeking out over the specs for a new Air Force One jet, seeing as “Yankee White” revolved around a Marine’s mysterious death aboard POTUS’ plane. Then, a series of explosions that came not long after Vance’s shooting were found to have targeted the Morrow family crypt (as in former NCIS Director Tom Morrow)…. Dr. Rachel Cranston, sister of the late Caitlin Todd… and former FBI agent Tobias Fornell. Morrow, Kate and Tobias all appeared in “Yankee White,” and recurring player Joe Spano’s Fornell was also on hand for “A Thousand Yards.”

This 1,000th franchise episode took a moment to fold in two spinoff characters — NCIS: LA‘s Kensi Blye-Deeks and NCIS: Hawai’i‘s Jane Tennant, both of whom teased Torres during an MTAC call. We got a mention of at least one Gibbs rule (“There is no such thing as coincidence”). And it was revealed that the young woman whom Vance’s son Jared had met online, had been groomed by Bandium founder Fletcher Voss (Bones vet T.J. Thyne) to shoot Vance, and who’d planted a virus on Voss’ phone, was in fact the daughter of the “patriot” who attempted to assassinate President George W. Bush in “Yankee White.” And here, she, too, aimed to use Air Force One as part of her plan.

Any number of you may have spotted a tinier callback, and I’ll be most curious to read your comments, but the stealthiest one that I spotted was the name of the Secret Service agent that Kasie reached out to during the antepenultimate scene, urging him to ground Air Force One’s imminent flight. That was Agent William Baer, Jr. — as in the son of Caitlin Todd’s boss in “Yankee White.”

What did you think of “A Thousand Yards,” including the pretty great (but too short) NCIS franchise montage that played during Vance’s flashback speech to a wee Jared?

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