McGee’s (Sean Murray) ambitions to become the deputy director were thwarted when Laroche (Seamus Dever) was given the position in NCIS Season 22. As the season unfolded, McGee developed suspicions about his new rival. While he was convinced that something was amiss, other characters thought he might have been trying to cope with losing to Laroche. The Season 22 finale took everything in a different direction as the team uncovered a major operation. By the end, Laroche left his position wide open for McGee to try again. However, NCIS showrunner Steven D. Binder is unsure that McGee becoming the new deputy director would be a step in the right direction for the character. “I’m not sure how much fun there is to be permanently putting McGee in a middle management role,” he told TV Insider when discussing what’s on the horizon in Season 23.
“The deputy director position and McGee’s relationship, that came out of the introduction of this character of Laroche who was a gray character as we learned, a deep cover mole, and right in McGee’s face is insult to injury the guy overseeing — McGee’s desire for that came out of Laroche’s character to begin with,” Binder said, contextualizing why McGee might not be interested in the poiton now that his biggest competitor is out of the game. The showrunner discussed what the future might hold for the character as far as promotions are concerned, saying,
“Deputy director, director, it’s sort of the same thing on one level. We have a director [Rocky Carroll‘s Vance], we have a manager position on the show. Even if just imagining from the best version of McGee’s promotion is that he actually gets promoted to the real position where things actually need to be done and decisions have to be made, not just some middle management.”
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McGee is the only character from the early team to remain a constant presence throughout the years. He is the show’s anchor, which is why the writers have not kicked him up the agency’s management ladder. “I don’t know that we’d want to do that because we would be seeing a lot less of McGee. He’s great where he is. I know Sean loves the place that he’s at over the years. We’ve all talked about promotions. There was when Gibbs left the show, it was, do we make McGee the team leader? What do we do with it?” Binder said, revealing that they’d wrestled with the predicament before. He added:
“And it just seems to be the most fun and the most entertaining to have him where he is now. It’s only when you start talking about the real world and what would be realistic, would a guy of his experience start moving up? And HR realism doesn’t make for good cop show, I don’t think. There’s no plans to do that. Certainly it’s always been real fun when we’ve had to stick McGee temporarily in that position and he’s enjoying it and he’s loving it and then he is got to hand the keys back to Vance. Or when Gibbs had done it and was just overwhelmed and didn’t want to do it. Even though that hasn’t been fully written, I think we’re going to leave it as is for now.”
Based on these comments, McGee will not be moving behind a desk in the foreseeable future. Stay tuned to Collider for more NCIS updates.