The NCIS cast will be adding another star to the show before the end of the current season.
Following the news that CBS ordered NCIS Season 20 to begin airing in Fall 2022, it was revealed that a new character would be entering the fold.
Earlier in NCIS Season 19, actor Gary Cole joined the show as FBI Agent Alden Parker. He lost his job at the FBI during his pursuit of Gibbs (who was a fugitive at the time), but Parker has now taken over the team that Gibbs left behind.
Now, the NCIS cast is going to introduce another character from Parker’s past, and this is someone that will become a recurring part of the show. In addition to first appearing on the season finale, the new character will also appear in NCIS Season 20.
NCIS cast joined by actress Teri Polo
According to Deadline, Teri Polo will play the ex-wife of Alden Parker. The new character is named Vivian Kolchak, and she too is a former FBI agent, but she left the agency to work for the Defense Department as a paranormal investigator.
There seems to be a lot of baggage in the former relationship between Parker and Kolchak, and there is likely a good reason that she left the FBI after they got divorced.
This is a very similar method to how Katrina Law joined the NCIS cast as Agent Jessica Knight. She popped up near the end of Season 18 when her team was killed, and she ended up becoming a full-time character when NCIS Season 19 began.
Now, Teri Polo is in line to do the same thing, with her character appearing in the Season 19 finale before she returns for episodes in NCIS Season 20. It’s hard not to see this as a big hint that she will play heavily into what takes place to wrap up the current season.
Past roles for Teri Polo
Teri Polo has been acting for a long time, but she is probably best-known for playing Pam Byrnes in the Meet the Parents film trilogy. Her character was married to Ben Stiller’s character in the films, and the movie did really well.
Since then, Polo has starred as Stef Adams Foster on The Fosters, and returned to play the same character on Good Trouble. Before all that, Polo was also seen as Maggie Sherwood on the TV show Felicity and as Michelle Schodowski Capra on Northern Exposure before all that.
Ahead of the NCIS Season 19 season finale arriving and Teri Polo debuting her new character, there are a lot of important episodes left to air this spring. One crucial episode revolves around Agent Torres, as his past is about to haunt him.
NCIS airs Mondays at 9/8c on CBS.