NCIS fans, remember the episode in which Patrick Duffy wasted the valuable time of our favorite special agents?
Dallas fans know all about Duffy, the actor who played Bobby Ewing on the iconic prime-time soap about a Texas oil and ranch family. Duffy was the nice, romantic guy with the big heart, which made him the opposite of evil big brother J.R. Ewing (the late Larry Hagman, may he be drinking celestial bourbon and branch on the other side.)
On NCIS, Duffy played retired Navy Lieutenant Commander Jack Briggs in an episode called Flight Plan. It ran Jan. 14, 2020.
The NCIS episode focused on Navy Lt. Rebecca Weeks, who never returned from an F-18 training mission back to the USS Franklin Roosevelt. Turns out, she disabled the tracker inside her plane and hid her gear. She did disappear, but for what reason?
Meanwhile, the NCIS team interviewed sailors on the Roosevelt. They also learn Weeks’ boyfriend is dead and had traces of oxycodone in his system. Weeks’ bunkmate told the team that the boyfriend dumped Weeks because she was too old. And, the roommate said Weeks vowed revenge.
Duffy Stalled ‘NCIS’ Team to Help His God Daughter
The NCIS team tracked Weeks down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They find Duffy, her godfather, and question him about Weeks. Duffy said there’s no way his goddaughter would kill her boyfriend. Basically, in his brief appearance, Duffy was stalling the NCIS team long enough for Weeks to take off in a small plane.
But Weeks wasn’t trying to hide. Rather, she was attempting to solve a crime. She called Leroy Jethro Gibbs and told him she was trying to do her job. The wife of her commander recently died in a car wreck. Weeks believes her commander killed his wife, who happened to be a friend of Weeks. The NCIS crew goes back to the Roosevelt to question the commander. Someone did use a computer to tamper with the brakes of his wife’s car. But it was Weeks’ bunkmate, who was having an affair with the commander. Crime solved.
Duffy is 73 now. His Dallas days are long over. Duffy reprised his role in a Dallas reboot for TNT from 2012-14. But the show didn’t survive after Hagman’s death. So Duffy keeps busy by doing guest-starring roles in dramas like NCIS.
Most recently, he and his girlfriend Linda Purl starred in Doomsday Mom: The Lori Vallow Story. The movie premiered on June 26 on Lifetime.
Meanwhile, NCIS is in a state of flux as the show heads into season 19. It’s not clear whether Mark Harmon, who plays Gibbs, will have much of a role when the series premieres in the fall. At the end of the season 18 finale, Gibbs’ boat exploded. But viewers could see he was alive. Reports indicate that Harmon will be in only a handful of episodes for the 2021-22 season.
NCIS producers cast Gary Cole as FBI special agent Alden Park. He’s not replacing Gibbs, per se, but likely will fill the void when Harmon isn’t available.
Stay tuned. Maybe NCIS will cast other notable guest stars like Duffy in future episodes.
