NCIS season 22 bottle episode finds the team attempting to stop World War III

NCIS aired a new episode, "Sticks & Stones," that was all hands on deck from the second it began airing. Agent Alden Parker got a dire warning that there was a chance a world war was starting. But when an attack was ordered despite the possibility that there was no longer a threat, was NCIS able to stop things from escalating? Here's what happened!

There had been a development when the Eastern European country of Belarus appeared to be preparing to launch multiple attacks through Europe by using missile launchers. NCIS’ job was to find out where they were located before they could be used. Another branch of NCIS in Naples, Italy had discovered the information through a message, but then a second message was received that had yet to be decoded.

Due to the President and Vice President being unavailable, in addition to the Speaker of the House, the next top person in charge ordered NCIS to drop a nuclear weapon without being sure that the second message from Belarus wasn’t a stand down message.

Even though Parker and McGee wanted to hold off, they were prevented from doing so by the FBI. They were still determined to find the location of the missiles and attack. The episode then saw Parker and McGee as they made an escape to prevent the FBI from stopping them. They needed to give Kasie a chance to decode the message to see if Belarus was standing down.

The only way they could prevent an attack from being fulfilled was by cutting the power to MTAC, which they had the ability to do down in the evidence garage. They found Torres, who also had his own escape from an FBI agent in the autopsy room before going to try and find a charger for his phone.

Using a sledgehammer from evidence to break the concrete the breaker was housed in, they were able to successfully cut the power. Unfortunately, they also took power from Kasie, and before they could fix things, the FBI arrested Parker, McGee, and Torres.

Parker managed to convince them to let Kasie have more time to decode the message. Sure enough, once she got the message through, they learned Ukranian Special Forces had already received the location of the launchers and retrieved them. In fact, the entire mission ended before the first transmission regarding the launchers had hit NCIS Naples.

All in all, this episode of NCIS was such a fun bottle episode to watch from start to finish. It essentially saw the team in one place trying to not only save themselves from losing their jobs, but also saving the world from imminent attacks. Plus, fans of Jessica and Jimmy got to see the former couple talk about their relationship.

They both still loved each other, but agreed that for now, they weren’t in the place the other needed in order for their relationship to work. It was good for them to talk it out and hopefully if things change, they will figure out if they want to try things again.

NCIS airs Mondays on CBS at 9/8c. Make sure to keep an eye on Americans Undercover for more coverage and follow us on X!