#Gerald McRaney promoted to series regular

NCIS: Los Angeles season 13 seems to be mapping out its future early. After all, they’ve just locked down Gerald McRaney.

In a new statement per Deadline, showrunner R. Scott Gemmill confirmed that the actor behind Admiral Kilbride will be a series regular moving forward. Here is just some of what he had to say on the subject:

“When you have an actor of Gerald McRaney’s caliber, you do everything you can to make sure you get him as often as possible … Admiral Kilbride has been an esteemed part of our universe for seven years now and we look forward to viewers seeing him come in and shake up our NCIS: LA world.”

Odds are, Kilbride’s increased role will help compensate for the loss of Renee Felice Smith as Nell. At the end of this past season, she decided to take off with Eric Beale to Japan rather than permanently replace Hetty as leader of the team. While we’re not 100% sure that Kilbride is an exact fill-in for Linda Hunt’s character, it does mean more consistency at the top of the metaphorical food chain. We know that there are plans for Hunt to be around more for season 13, but it’s hard to say how many episodes that equals.

As for whether or not NCIS: LA will hire another series regular to replace Barrett Foa, we’re not sure that they need to. Even with the recent exits this is still a rather large cast, and the writers could instead decide to give more to people like Rountree and Fatima, who occasionally don’t have enough in the way of interesting things to do. They’re great characters who deserve even more material!

Related – Be sure to get some more news when it comes to NCIS: Los Angeles and the road ahead

What do you think about Gerald McRaney being promoted to series regular for NCIS: Los Angeles season 13?

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