Blue finds a strange woman in her apartment at the end of NCIS: Sydney season 2, and that cliffhanger could suggest a fix to the series’ biggest storytelling problem. The Australian spinoff has been something of a weak link in the franchise thus far, but the showrunner has revealed how one of NCIS: Sydney’s best characters can turn things around.
NCIS: Sydney Season 3 Will Identify Blue’s Mysterious Visitor Early In The Season
Bluebird Gleeson is one of NCIS: Sydney’s most mysterious characters, with hints throughout season 2 that she has been working for the agency under a false identity with a fake birthday and assumed name. These breadcrumbs didn’t lead to any immediate revelations, but Blue’s intruder at the end of the NCIS: Sydney season 2 finale is reassurance that answers are forthcoming.
A number of fans suspected that the mysterious visitor in Blue’s apartment could actually be her mother, particularly after learning that Bluebird’s name and tattoo reference pop star Nova Sykes’ lyrics about being caged in by her father. But showrunner Morgan O’Neill promised an even more substantial reveal while speaking with TVLine, and it will happen early in season 3:
“All the locks on the door. The fact that she doesn’t want to be photographed when she was going to the concert, the fact that she has no digital footprint, the fact that she asks Doc on the pier up in Darwin, when they get back to Sydney, whether he can take a look at some stuff for her in a professional way. There’s a lot of breadcrumbing when this happens, and obviously, this woman is, in some ways, the combination of all of those breadcrumbs. What happens next… I wish I could tell you, but it’s an absolute cracking episode early on in Season 3 where all those questions are answered.”
However, unlike Colonel Rankin’s heart attack and the subsequent hunt for Ana Niemus in the season 2 premiere, Blue’s season 3 storyline won’t necessarily pick up precisely where it left off. O’Neill explains to TVLine that the season won’t be set significantly long after Blue’s discovery in her apartment, but that it also won’t follow continuously from the same scene.
The full scope of Blue’s storyline and whether it will account for the season’s primary overarching conflict remain unclear, but O’Neill’s comments suggest there won’t be a long wait for the plotline to begin swiftly gaining momentum. And this could resolve a major issue that’s been hampering the spinoff’s ability to reach full storytelling potential for the past two seasons.
NCIS: Sydney’s 2-Season Rankin Story Was Ruined By Frustrating Pacing Issues
Colonel Rankin started raising red flags toward the very beginning of NCIS: Sydney season 1 by interfering with an investigation that could have revealed sensitive information about the CIA, but it’s not until the final moments of the season 1 finale that Rankin’s suspect behavior meaningfully pays off. From that point forward, his storyline unfolds at an absolute snail’s pace.
After the season 2 premiere ends with Rankin in a coma and evidence suggesting his innocence in the kidnapping of JD’s son, clues about Rankin’s involvement in the season’s major terrorist plot only surface every few episodes. When they do surface, they take up only a few minutes of screentime before viewers are again left hanging until the next reveal.
For instance, Mackey and JD remain largely convinced of Rankin’s guilt until finding his teddy bear in season 2, episode 5. This leads to the discovery of an encrypted USB drive that complicates the narrative, but it takes multiple episodes for the drive to be decrypted despite forensic digital analysis typically yielding unrealistically speedy results in most NCIS spinoff series.
By the time the season gets to its climactic two-part Darwin adventure, Rankin’s plotline has commanded so little screentime outside of its four biggest episodes that it feels as if NCIS: Sydney spent a full two years on what easily could have been a mere half-season storyline. Unsurprisingly, the spinoff’s ratings fell into a slow yet largely steady decline throughout.
How NCIS: Sydney 3’s Blue Storyline Can Become A Turning Point For The Series
Individually, most NCIS: Sydney episodes are great. In just 18 episodes, the team has attended lavish parties, investigated vampires, and infiltrated an old-timey pirate ship. But teasing overarching plotlines that take forever to pay off detracts from the show’s overall story pacing. Slow burns work for minor storylines like Mackey and JD’s NCIS: Sydney romance, but not for major investigations.
Should ratings continue to fall, only the type of pacing shift offered by Blue’s storyline can turn things around. Moving to the same night as NCIS and Origins might result in a ratings boost, but the downside of NCIS: Sydney’s schedule change is that the spinoff will now be in a competing time slot with ABC’s runaway hit High Potential.
Bluebird can’t annihilate that kind of competition, but her storyline can bring back lost viewers by ramping up the spinoff’s momentum. Addressing Blue’s cliffhanger early in season 3 and following up with immediate rising action resolves the series’ pacing issues, and concluding that story before the finale could lead to an even bigger shift in storytelling format.
Rather than following a single overarching story across one or more years, NCIS: Sydney can use Blue’s narrative as a jumping off point to begin tackling multiple smaller arcs per season. Not only would this keep the story from stagnating, it would also freshen things up on a regular basis. Regardless, the spinoff won’t save its future without significant changes.
