NCIS Season 22, Episode 12, "Fun & Games," is a Kasie-centric episode filled with guest stars, such as Neal Honda, Charley Koontz, and Meredith Eaton.
The new episode of CBS' long-running crime series focuses on the death of one of Kasie's close friends who was in attendance during her occasional game night inside her apartment. Her friend was believed to be poisoned during the time of the games.
Elsewhere, the Pentagon has some questions about Tim McGee's book.
NCIS Season 22, Episode 12 premiered on CBS on February 10.
NCIS Season 22 Episode 12 Guest Stars & Featured Cast Guide
Eli Hernandez - Daryl Thomas
Eli Hernandez plays Daryl Thomas, a special agent from the Pentagon who invites McGee for questioning.
Hernandez has credits in Ambrosio, Promised Land, and Gang Related.
Jeremiah Caldwell - Burly Bouncer
Jeremiah Caldwell appears as the bouncer in the sketchy card game that sells counterfeit cards.
Caldwell also starred in FBI, The Bear, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Jackson Canning - Sketchy Senior
Jackson Canning is part of the cast of NCIS Season 22, Episode 12 as a sketchy senior who is part of the underground card game.
Canning's other major credit includes playing a background actor in The Outs.
Kevin Bohleber - Sketchy Dude
Kevin Bohleber portrays the sketchy dude in the underground game.
Bohleber has over 25 credits, with roles in The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth, V/H/S/Beyond, and Delicate Arch.
Courtney Hawkins - Sketchy Gal
Courtney Hawkins appears as the sketchy gal in the underground game.
Hawkins appeared in Truth Be Told, The Peripheral, and Fifteen-Love.
Shari Belafonte - Professor Annabelle Davis
Shari Belafonte joins the cast of NCIS Season 22, Episode 12 as Professor Annabelle Davis, Kasie's college professor who helps the team unpack more details about the case involving Victor and Craig's deaths.
Belafonte is a veteran actress known for her roles in Hotel, The Morning Show, and General Hospital. She is also a major part of the cast of Sistas.
Della Saba - Ilene Smyth
Della Saba portrays Ilene Smyth, a profiler from the FBI who is part of Kasie's circle of friends who play occasional game nights.
Saba is a voice actress whose major credits include Zootopia, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, and Last Cookie Standing.
Charley Koontz - Max Hoffman
Charley Koontz plays Max Hoffman, a hot-headed member of the group who threatens to kill Victor due to cheating during game nights.
Koontz has credits in CSI: Cyber, Community, and Station 19.
Eugene Kim - Captain Ed Fletcher
Eugene Kim guest stars as Captain Ed Fletcher of the Baltimore Crime Lab. He arrives at NCIS to help with the investigation.
Kim is known for his roles in Obliterated, Magnum P.I., and The Lincoln Lawyer.
Neal Honda - Victor Chan
Neal Honda appears as Victor Chan, Kasie's close friend who was killed by poison at the beginning of the episode.
Honda starred in Not Dead Yet, Better Call Saul, and Daisy Jones & The Six.
Michael Varde - Jesse Winston
Michael Varde appears as Jesse Winston, a former gang member seeking revenge against Professor Davis for putting him behind bars.
Varde starred in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Middleton Christmas, and Days of Our Lives.
Meredith Eaton - Carol Wilson
Meredith Eaton returns as Carol Wilson, another attendee of Kasie's game night and a close friend of hers. She works as an immunologist and toxicologist from the CDC.
Eaton can be seen in Boston Legal, MacGyver, and Battle Creek.
Here are the main actors who appeared in NCIS Season 22, Episode 10:
- Sean Murray - Timothy McGee
- Wilmer Valderrama - Nick Torres
- Katrina Law - Jessica Knight
- Brian Dietzen - Dr. Jimmy Palmer
- Diona Reasonover - Kasie Hines
- Gary Cole - Alden Parker
Read more about the full main cast of NCIS Season 22.
NCIS Season 22 Episode 12 Plot Recap & Ending Explained
It's All Fun & Games Until Someone Dies
NCIS Season 22, Episode 12, "Fun & Games," begins with a group of friends who are on their way home from a game of what is presumed to be Dungeons & Dragons.
After some bickering and teasing, Victor Chan was about to get inside his car, but he mysteriously choked to death.
The next day, it is quite confusing that his body and his car are found elsewhere in Alexandria.
At NCIS Headquarters, the core team are engaging in an interesting conversation centered around Tim McGee's new crime thriller novel before they get called in to investigate Victor Chan's death.
The initial investigation reveals that someone else drove Victor's car before leaving him and the vehicle in a nearby cliff.
It turns out that Victor is a marine core reservist and data scientist at Quantico. Not only that, she is also a close friend of NCIS' resident forensic experts, Kasie Hines.
Making matters more interesting, Victor and the friend group seen in the opening moments of the episode all came from Kasie's apartment last night due to their occasional game night.
Enter Kasie's Friend Group
Back at HQ, the team unpacks more details about Victor as they try to find out the motive and potential suspects behind his death.
As part of the investigation, this leads them to question Kasie and all the other players during game night to get a clear picture of what happened before Victor's death.
The said players include Max Hoffman (a doctor from the pathology department), Ilense Smyth (a profiler and a forensic pathologist), and a returning Carol Wilson (a forensic pathologist from the CDC).
Before the interrogation, Dr. Jimmy Palmer points out to the team that Victor was indeed poisoned since he had conium maculatum in his system during the thick of game night. This means that Kasie's apartment is now a crime scene.
Right before heading out to track down the guests, McGee is visited by an agent of Pentagon who wants to bring him in for questioning because his book might've contained classified intelligence.
Kasie, who is clearly uncomfortable with the team going through her apartment, is adamant that none of her friends killed Victor. Still, Agent Parker insists that they'll be discreet.
After the interrogation clears all of Kasie and her friends, they are required to be in protective custody because the killer is still out there.
An Unexpected Reunion
Circling back to McGee, he tells Torres the reason why the Department of Defense summoned him: his book is "a little too close to reality," more like "classified reality."
While he awaits their next call, it is revealed that the poison was on the fondue that one of their friends, Craig, sent for game night.
The team then looks for Craig, but they are too late since he is murdered as well. This means that the killer murdered Craig before sending out the toxic-infused fondue to Kasie's game night.
During a debrief, Ilene points out that Craig has been mumbling about unusual things that have ties to fluid dynamics and blood splatter, prompting Kasie to visit their former professor of Intro to Forensics, Annabelle Davis, to try to unpack the case.
Meanwhile, Agent Parker talks to Craig's boss to ask if his now-dead employee has enemies as well as getting access to his old case files.
Elsewhere, Kasie and Agent Knight head over to the university to meet Professor Davis.
She tells them that Craig is interested with vintage photography techniques that has ties to a collodion process, meaning that the chemical the killer used is hazardous (which is a way for the team to track down the culprit).
The Dangers of a Card Game
McGee and Torres investigate a storage room where they find a bag consists of a gun, Craig's fake ID, and a bulk of cash. Torres points out that Craig might not be investigating a crime, and he is the one committing it instead.
The hunch may be right since McGee finds out that Craig was hacking into Baltimore PD's evidence logs for reasons unknown.
Despite Kasie's insistence that Craig is innocent, she finds out through her analysis that his set up in the storage unit is being used to make printing plates as a way to counterfeit something.
It turns out that Craig is counterfeiting rare collectible cards to gain some money for himself.
The investigation trail leads Parker and Torres to an underground card game where they may potentially find the real killer.
In unexpected fashion, they end up finding Captain Fletcher inside and he tried to make a run for it.
However, he is innocent and not the killer because his only crime is counterfeiting collectible cards, a move that Craig copied from him.
So Who Killed Victor & Craig?
After some digging, Kasie finally unlocks who the killer might be after pinpointing the fact that all of them have something in common: Professor Davis.
Before becoming their professor and eventual mentor, Davis was the head of forensics for the Maryland State Department.
Kasie pulls her old case files to check if anything has changed recently, and it turns out that a convicted gang member that she testified against was recently paroled.
His name is Jesse Winston and he is currently enrolled in one of Professor Davis' classes of, you guessed it, Intro to Forensics.
The team race against time to save Davis before it's too late. Thankfully, they arrive in time to ultimately kill Jesse and save Davis' life.
Back at HQ, Kasie and her friend group reunite with Professor Davis, but the story is far from over.
Kasie talks to Professor Davis, and she finds out that she falsified evidence to send Jesse Winston to jail. She also gets arrested for her past crimes.
As for McGee, he is not in trouble with the DoD after all since the Secretary of Defense only wants to him.
New episodes of NCIS Season 22 air on Monday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS before streaming the next day on Paramount+.
Read more about NCIS Season 22, Episode 10's baking-centric episode.
