#Early ‘The First Day’ promo expectations

If you did not know already, NCIS season 18 episode 7 is titled “The First Day” — kind of an ironic name for a show that is been on close to 20 years.

What is a little more unclear, though, is if there are any long-term stories that will be featured here at all. The synopsis for the episode is a little bit vague: “NCIS investigates the murder of a Navy officer who was killed while driving home a recently released inmate. Also, Gibbs helps Palmer deal with a personal trauma.” Basically, that means that we’re going to have a familiar story-of-the-week plot coupled with something a little bit more personal for Jimmy. We love a good Brian Dietzen storyline, but typically they don’t last longer than a single week.

For some more NCIS video updates, check out our take on this past episode below! Once you do that, be sure to subscribe to Matt & Jess on YouTube and also view our playlist. We’ll have other updates coming after each past episode.

So what will CBS actually push to get people watching the show? It’s possible that they will just focus in on the story-of-the-week plot — an appeal to fans of the more procedural aspects of NCIS. They could also lean into Jimmy, but could they go off the map entirely here?

If there’s one thing that we hope the writers start to lean into now, it is the idea that Maria Bello is leaving the show soon. With the Gibbs/Fornell story wrapped up and with us getting at least some sense of how Bishop and Torres feel about each other, there isn’t a more important story in this world. She’s supposedly gone within a couple of episodes! Even if we don’t know why Sloane is leaving within “The First Day,” it would be nice to get a few more clues. It’d be a little bit of a bummer if her entire story is wrapped up within a single episode, especially since she’s been a huge part of the past few years — and an important person in Gibbs’ life.

By featuring Sloane more in the promotion, we’d at least get some proper buildup to what feels like an inevitable: A goodbye.

What are you most hoping to see on NCIS season 18 episode 7?

Be sure to let us know right now in the attached comments! We’ll have some other news coming up, as well, that you don’t want to miss. (Photo: CBS.)

This article was written by Jessica Carter. Be sure to follow her on Twitter.