‘NCIS’: Blast From Torres’ Past Leads to Major Cliffhanger in Season 20 Finale (Recap)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the NCIS Season 20 finale “Black Sky.”]

Sure, there’s a threat of a major attack on the U.S., but with one voicemail, that becomes the least interesting thing about the NCIS Season 20 finale.

“Black Sky” sees Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) go undercover in prison to try to get more information out of Yuri about the impending terror attack that the team believes his father is behind. That’s easier said than done, especially once Yuri knows there’s an undercover agent there with him. That’s not enough to get Torres to agree to being pulled, despite Vance (Rocky Carroll) sending Parker (Gary Cole) to do just that.

One of Yuri’s men, Lev, has Torres write down some basic information about himself for a background check — soon after the team had worried he hadn’t had enough time to memorize everything about his cover — and the muscle, Boris, is more than eager to attack when something doesn’t track. Torres quickly covers, and Kasie (Diona Reasonover) backstops it.

The team, meanwhile, strikes a deal with Russian spy Evelyn: witness protection for what she knows (which isn’t much, but includes that the attack is happening very soon, the wheels are already in motion, and Yuri probably knows about the undercover agent). McGee (Sean Murray) is the one to figure out the specific details about the attack, after cracking the code Yuri used in texts with his father: They’re targeting the U.S. power grid, with a plan that would knock out electricity to the whole country, with widespread outages for weeks, if not months. It would lead to the total breakdown of society as they know it.

Just as Yuri trusts Torres, even telling him about his sister who was horrible to him and “daddy’s little princess,” Boris and Lev go after Yuri; he’s killed. With that, Torres is pulled and Lev is brought to NCIS as well. Why’d they kill their buddy? Boss, Lev corrects Torres in interrogation, for respect. But Torres recalls something Lev previously told him, that it would be suicide to be anything but loyal to Yuri’s father, whom he realizes ordered the hit on his own son so he wouldn’t spill about his plan. Though Lev asks for his lawyer, since one arrives at that moment, before he could be called, Parker poses as his and gets the message from “you know who,” a.k.a. Yuri’s father: Dodge Challenger license plate RF-20723E, for Anastasia. The agents soon discover it’s a plane, that left Russia hours ago. It didn’t file a flight plan, but it’s near D.C. and Parker bets that Yuri’s father is on board.

But that’s when the power goes out — in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and D.C., at least so far — and the way it does signals that it was a computer virus. Even with backup generators, the phone lines are dead, there’s no cell service, the internet is out, etc. The team’s only form of communication: walkie talkies.