Season Analysis

NCIS

Season 22 Analysis

Season Woke Score

out of 10

Season Overview

No specific overview for this season.

Season Review

NCIS Season 22 maintains the predictable procedural format while continuing the franchise's shift toward character-driven drama. The season focuses heavily on internal NCIS dynamics, including the return of Jessica Knight, the dissolution of her relationship with Jimmy Palmer, and a long-running arc where McGee investigates a superior for corruption. A crossover appearance by Sam Hanna from NCIS: LA introduces a politically-charged case involving a private military company exploiting veterans, which serves as a critique of certain aspects of the military establishment. The team composition reflects the current trend of high diversity across all key roles, but the weekly crime-of-the-week formula generally avoids overt ideological lecturing, preferring personal melodrama and typical bureaucratic or espionage plots.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics4/10

The main cast features a diverse representation, including a Black director, a Black forensic specialist, and lead agents who are Hispanic and Asian, making meritocracy secondary to a visible quota in casting. A major storyline places White male agent McGee in conflict with a White male deputy director whom he wrongly suspects of being a corrupt mole, setting up a White male-as-antagonist archetype. However, the narrative resolves the conflict by clearing the deputy director, preventing a 10/10 score.

Oikophobia4/10

The series remains centered around a military law enforcement agency, preventing a high score. However, one key plot involves a former military man (Sam Hanna) who is working to protect 'democracy' on Capitol Hill and helping expose a private military company that is exploiting veterans to protect 'warlords and other bad guys.' This frames a portion of the Western military-industrial complex as fundamentally corrupt. Another episode questions the heroism of a veteran advocate, introducing a deconstructive element toward American institutional figures.

Feminism5/10

Special Agent Jessica Knight (Asian Female) and Forensic Specialist Kasie Hines (Black Female) are consistently portrayed as highly competent, strong professionals. Knight's professional status is confirmed by her highly-coveted chief training officer offer. Male leads, particularly Dr. Palmer, are often defined by their emotional turmoil over relationship issues with the female characters. The narrative focuses on the career path and relationship drama of the female agent, though her character is sometimes depicted as immature in personal relationships by a review, slightly countering the perfect 'Girl Boss' trope.

LGBTQ+1/10

The season's plot summaries reveal no instances of the narrative focusing on, celebrating, or lecturing about alternative sexualities or gender identity ideology. The main romantic arcs, including Torres' secret romance and the Knight/Palmer relationship, are heterosexual and normative in structure.

Anti-Theism1/10

No explicit or implicit anti-theism appears in the primary plot details. The show functions within a standard procedural framework that assumes a transcendent moral law where actions have objective consequences (crime and justice), offering a neutral-to-positive stance toward objective truth.