7 NCIS: Hawai’i Stories That Can Never Be Finished After Its Controversial Cancelation

NCIS: Hawai’i’s cliffhanger ending outraged the show’s fan base, which had already organized online to reverse the show’s cancelation. NCIS: Hawai’i fans vowed not to watch the NCIS: Origins spinoff, the Gibbs prequel series that CBS airs on Monday nights instead. The swap gives more screen time to Gibbs’ story in 1991, which highlights the central NCIS character and his old colleagues like Special Agent Vera Strickland. Unfortunately, Vera’s story and the stories of other female agents focus on how they struggle to excel at the agency, making it all the more frustrating that NCIS: Hawai’i’s empowering narratives won’t continue.

Jane Tennant’s Mom’s Story

One of the stories I’m most disappointed won’t continue is the narrative surrounding Jane Tennant’s relationship with her mother. In NCIS: Hawai’i season 3, episode 7, “The Next Thousand,” Jane Tennant experiences a vision of her mother. The development is mysterious and moving, particularly at the end when Jane’s mother yells at her concerning details she’s missing in the case. It doesn’t make sense on the first watch, but the show reveals later that it was a hallucination and the woman in the cabin was Jane’s mother, looking exactly the way she did the day she left.

Lachey revealed that Tennant’s NCIS: Hawai’i storyline reflected her experience, noting that her mother abandoned her when she was young. The connection gave Lachey’s performance a more profound emotion, making it a genuinely gripping moment for the series. The development further empowered Jane’s character, showing how she succeeded despite her tragedy, which Lachey noted in an interview with The Talk. The moment set the series up to delve deeper into Jane’s past, with more time to explore her story in a potential season 4.

Maggie Shaw’s Return

With the cancelation, fans will never know what came of Maggie Shaw’s return. NCIS: Hawai’i’s season 3 ended on a frustrating cliffhanger, with Maggie Shaw reappearing in Jane’s home just before the series ended. While an argument can be made that the show could have cut the final scene for a more satisfying ending, leaving the cliffhanger highlights that NCIS: Hawai’i’s cancelation blindsided its cast and crew.

After its conclusion, producers revealed NCIS: Hawai’i season 4’s scrapped story, speaking with TV Line. Showrunners Jan Nash, Christopher Silber, and Matt Bosack had an answer about where Maggie’s story would go next. They hinted that Maggie’s story would have intersected with Jane’s mother and eventually led to her dark spy past:

While not fully fleshed out, we had a general idea of where the Maggie story was going. It would have eventually intersected with Jane Tennant’s mother, but it was also going to move back into the dark world of Tennant’s spy past, using those stories to increase our understanding of who Jane was, but also to learn more about her team in the process.

Before joining NCIS at Maggie Shaw’s insistence, Tennant was a CIA agent. It would have been satisfying to see producers flush out Jane’s past from different angles that intersected. Maggie was a fundamental element of Jane’s past, and the former CIA double agent was on the run in NCIS: Hawai’i season 3 with Tennant desperate to find her. Thus, Maggie showing up on Jane’s couch is a well of untapped story potential.

Kai & Camille’s Romance

NCIS: Hawai’i season 3 introduced a romance for Alex Tarrant’s Kai Holman character. Kai’s romance was short-lived but suggested he was on a quest to find his person. NCIS: Hawai’i season 3, episode 5, “Serve and Protect,” introduced Peyton List as Camille Davies, an accomplished war correspondent for the Toronto Examiner in Toronto, Canada. Kai’s girlfriend started as a mystery, which made it so much better when she showed up on the island in season 3.

Kai wanted to advance his romance with Camille, evolving it beyond their infrequent meetups. Camille’s choices in “Serve and Protect” suggested she wanted to advance the romance, too. Kai was a heartfelt character, and his connection to the island, with his roots in Waimanalo, Hawai’i, embellished the series’ stories. That said, it’s too bad we can’t see how his romance with Camille played out.

It’s a disappointment that we won’t get to see Noah Mill’s character in the shared NCIS universe anymore, especially considering that Jesse was such a great dad. What happened to Gibbs’ wife and daughter in NCIS highlights that NCIS special agents typically have strained relationships with their families in the franchise or no family at all due to their demanding work as federal agents. Thus, Jesse’s determination to make it work was refreshing, putting forth the effort to be the best dad possible.

Remarkably, we never got to meet Jesse’s wife and kids. In their interview with TV Line following NCIS: Hawai’i’s conclusion, showrunners clarified they started every season intending to introduce Jesse’s family and that they would surface eventually. Knowing that Jesse’s story is incomplete, it’s unfortunate that NCIS: Hawai’i didn’t focus more on Jesse in season 3, shifting to the top-secret NCIS: ELITE mission to cap off the outing.

It’s truly disheartening that NCIS: Hawai’i can’t continue its love story between Yasmine Al-Bustami’s Lucy Tara and Tori Anderson’s FBI Agent Kate Whistler. Rather than an afterthought or a plot point, Lucy and Kate’s romance was the premiere romance in the island-based series. Kate and Lucy’s story saturated the series with rich representation, bringing an LGBTQ+ romance to the screen and inviting audiences who don’t always get to see a reflection of their experience on the small screen.

The love story between the couple, who fans coined “Kacy,” was a significant draw for the series. Lucy and Kate would work undercover operations together, recreating the beloved NCIS undercover setup — like those between Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David or Austin Stowell’s Gibbs and Mariel Molino’s Lala Dominguez — with two female agents. The couple’s last undercover operation in NCIS: Hawai’i season 3 involved them playing newlyweds, promoting conversations about their dream for their wedding, and setting up Lucy and Kate’s marriage.

At the least, Lucy and Kate were discussing meeting their parents in NCIS: Hawai’i season 3, which may never happen now. Kate came from a more supportive family and was instilled with her mother’s dream for her wedding. Lucy came from a family who ran a massive oil business and were less supportive of her choices. The developments in season 3 open up the story about Lucy’s distance from her family while she works on protective detail for a Russian arms dealer. Lucy’s family story is another that won’t continue.

What Will Happen With NCIS: ELITE & Sam Hanna’s Hawai’i Story?

NCIS: Hawai’i leaves open to interpretation what happens next for Sam Hanna and NCIS: ELITE. Season 3 revealed that Hanna wasn’t just on the island to look after Jane Tennant — he was leading a classified operation of highly skilled agents to take out an arsenal of bioweapons. NCIS: ELITE’s story comes to a head in the season 3 finale when Analisa Cruz (Rachel Marsh) evades the team during their final lab raid to rid the world of a harmful substance called Compound X.

While their raid doesn’t go as planned, NCIS: ELITE technically achieves its mission, securing the deadly bioweapon, leaving the future of Hanna’s special team a mystery. There’s a chance that with three NCIS: ELITE agents suffering fatal injuries in the finale and with the bioweapon under lock, the team wouldn’t be in commission anymore. Therefore, Sam Hanna had no secure future with Jane Tennant’s team.

In their interview with TV Line, showrunners suggested they welcomed LL Cool J’s character to the series after the cancelation of NCIS: Los Angeles and hoped he would be with the show for many years. Still, there’s an argument to be made that Hanna and his NCIS: ELITE mission distracted from what makes the show great — the cast of NCIS: Hawai’i. While Sam and Jane had great chemistry, I also wonder what an ending or continuation for Jane’s team would have looked like without Hanna overshadowing what they’d established.

There’s one more love story that NCIS: Hawai’i’s cancelation leaves incomplete, and that’s the story of Jason Altoon’s Ernie Malik, the team’s cyber specialist. Ernie added something extra special to the series. Malik’s electric personality and endearing quirkiness weren’t something the show forced. Instead, Ernie is a genuinely unique and compelling character, thanks to Altoon’s humor and finesse. One of Ernie’s paramount qualities is that he’s awkward, and the show embraces how the character contrasts with the mundane. Still, despite his desire for solitude, Ernie was looking for love in season 3.