NCIS has been peeling back Alden Parker’s layers all season long, and Season 23, Episode 7, “God Only Knows,” continues that trend with an hour that feels far more like a therapy session than a procedural mystery. While the case of the week takes a backseat for much of the episode, the emotional payoff in the final act lands with force.
The episode opens with a misdirect involving a Navy lieutenant suspected of turning traitor after being captured overseas—a storyline that feels a little dated thanks to shows like Homeland. But the real focus becomes clear once a Navy chaplain enters the picture, serving as an unexpected mirror for Parker’s increasingly tangled emotional state.
Their tense conversations—during interrogations, surprise home visits, and quiet moments referencing Parker’s past—repeatedly pull the story back to what’s going on inside Parker’s head. Add in friction with Director Vance over more bad publicity and Jimmy Palmer finally revealing what he suspects about the death of Parker’s mother, and the hour becomes almost exclusively centered on Gary Cole’s character.
But when the episode finally reveals its true narrative direction, everything snaps into place. The suspected traitor is actually a whistleblower, terminally ill, and burdened by the trauma of witnessing a teammate’s suicide—an emotional twist that hits harder than any plot reveal. The tragedy radiates outward, echoing the unseen damage left behind in such moments.
The real antagonist, spotted early by savvy viewers, is the chaplain’s assistant—another recent crime show trend of hiding the culprit in plain sight. Yet the real climax is how Parker confronts the harsh truth and the questions it stirs. His final conversation with the chaplain—asking why terrible things happen to good people—may not be original, but it resonates deeply in the wake of the story we’ve just watched.
While “God Only Knows” isn’t a standout procedural hour, it does its job: pushing the long-running subplot about Parker’s mother forward and giving Parker a moment of self-reflection he’s been circling for weeks. The audience may not learn much new about him—but he may finally be learning something about himself.
