‘NCIS’: Why Diona Reasonover Was Nervous to Show a Different Side of Kasie

With the cops and the Department of Defense Chief Barbado (Noah Bean) breathing down their necks, Kasie takes off to get the notebook that has everything she needs to recreate the formula. Sam goes with her. The only problem? It’s with her ex-girlfriend, Joanna (Briana Venskus), and they didn’t part on good terms. Sam plays couple’s therapist, trying to force them to talk out their issues: Joanna knows how important her career was to her, but she says that she pushed her away when she tried to get close, while Kasie, eventually, admits that she worried she wasn’t good enough for her.

Kasie spends some time in a holding cell while the team tracks down who has Edna: Barbado, trying to sell it. But even once Kasie has it back (and her name has been cleared), she knows it’s too dangerous to keep around. And so with that, she deletes it before going out with Joanna to catch up.

Below, Diona Reasonover breaks down this episode and teases what’s ahead in the finale.

Kasie explains her reasoning for deleting Edna, but how hard was that for her? Because that was something she’d been working on for over a decade.

Diona Reasonover: Yeah. You know what? I was actually amazed because when I read that at the end, I was surprised. I was like, wait, what? Yeah, I don’t know that I can let go of things that I did last week, much less something that I had spent the majority of my professional career working on.

And I felt so bad for her when she realized how Edna could be used against her and others, but it also says so much about her that that had never crossed her mind.

OK, thank you. Because I’m from Detroit, so I’m constantly like, is this a trap? Yeah, my brain automatically goes to the other side of it, but I love that she’s not jaded that way that a lot of us are. And I guess also it’s one of these things where it’s probably because she had been working on it for so long, the way the technology advanced, it was even beyond what she could imagine.

It looks like Kasie and Joanna are reconnecting at the end, which was a nice little moment. So how much is Kasie heading out with her at the end there about Joanna specifically, and how much is it just maybe Kasie realizing that she is very much enough for someone else?

This has been such a long, beautiful arc that’s coming. This actually feels like, even though it’s a part two to “Reboot,” this feels like a part two to an episode that Marco Schnabel wrote where Kasie is talking about, “I realize that I’m the problem.” And finally she’s getting to the point where she’s like, “OK, I’m the problem, but I don’t have to be because I am enough for people.” I think it’s a really beautiful sort of infinity sign. I like it.

…  I think it’s all about Kasie. I really do. I think the amount of how far she’s come since “Lifeline,” if you look at the direct character path between “Lifeline,” “Reboot,” and this new one, you can kind of see some real character growth. I’m proud of my girl.

But does this maybe mean that there could there be a future with her and Joanna? Because I just want to hear about happiness and happiness in her love life for Kasie because we haven’t gotten that.

No, we have not. We have gotten kidnapped Kasie, gotten potential killer Kasie, but Briana Venskus, who plays Joanna, is one of my favorite actresses. I would love to see both this new side of Kasie and also more of Briana because she’s such a baller. I do love her.

It was also great to have LL Cool J back as Sam and get those great Sam and Kasie scenes. What is it about Sam that Kasie was able to open up like she does in this episode to him?

I think that Sam is very much like Todd. Todd is a mentor. Todd is like, “I got you. Hold on.” I was nervous about this episode because it is such a big emotional episode and I felt like it was the culmination of a lot of the character work that I’ve been doing with Kasie. And Todd saw that immediately, stepped up, was like, “Don’t worry, I got you,” and was the best scene partner, was like, “We can run it as much as you want. You let me know what you need.” Sam is that way, too. He’s a protector, he’s a leader. So to have him right there, that’s the person that she needed.

Also, it’s easier to talk to someone who’s not there day-to-day rather than someone you’re close to — we hear that Jimmy (Brian Dietzen) was hurt that Kasie didn’t bring up Edna to him.

I’m laughing because of course Jimmy was hurt. I was like, that’s such a Palmer thing. But no, I think she’s got so many people on the team that she trusts, but it does get to that point where it’s like it’s easier to talk at a bar at a stranger after a drink, just like you said, you know what I mean, than sometimes it is to talk to your own family.

Because also her family, they kind of have a personal stake in that as well.

Yeah. And they might say things like, “Oh, it’s easy,” or, “You don’t need that.” They give you all those words of affirmation, but Sam is literally like, “You need to fix this.”

Yeah, because we saw that Palmer was worried about Kasie not coming back to work if she had sold Edna. Had that been something that Kasie had ever considered?

I mean, I’ll say this, Kasie’s not perfect. So I think I would be remiss to say, “No, she didn’t think about it at all.” But I think as soon as she realized she wouldn’t get to go back to her job that she loves, her family, she said, absolutely not.

Also, I just don’t see her staying away for that long, even if she had.

As much as Kasie likes to talk and as much as Kasie likes to be in that lab, I can imagine her being like, OK, I’m done. Wait a minute, you’re trying to do what? You want to paint it? You want to take my elephant painting down? Absolutely not. Here, I’m back.

Sam playing couple’s therapist was so funny. Talk about filming that scene.

[Laughs] That scene was so fun. So we loved the script, but we just didn’t know how it was going to work, how the beats were going to work. And LL Cool J was so funny immediately. It was so hard for me and Briana not to just burst out laughing because me and Briana, we’re really arguing. We said, “Do you mind if we go?” And he said, “Yeah, go ahead.” We start arguing. He’s like, “Hey, hey, hey.” And he was really acting like a referee. It was very funny.

Was anything improvised in that scene that made the final cut?

No, but Briana and I had a little running gag going. We have a little secret code, which is right before the scene starts, one of us would turn to the other one and say, “I burned dinner,” which is a line from Angels in America. And it’s a scene where two people are arguing and we had actually done that scene together ages ago before either of us got on the show. So we were just making a little callback to that being like, “Hey, you got to bring your A game.”

I love that.

You’d be amazed to know that I’ve come a long way since those theater days.

It feels like for scenes like that, theater experience helps, right?

Yeah. I said that when I was writing “Turkey Trot,” I was really rewriting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And this to me felt very much like that one scene in Angels in America. I think the ability to just connect and dig in and make connections and actually try to listen and try to hurt people, I don’t think I’d be able to do that without my theater training.

How was getting to explore this side of Kasie, the one who struggled with opening up like she eventually did? Because we’re so used to seeing Kasie so confident in the lab.

I was nervous about that. I was not sure if it should be so much self-doubt. And I went and I talked to the writer and I talked to Marco Schnabel and I talked to Jimmy Whitmore and they’re both so brilliant and they both said, no, “This is the same thing that we struggle with. We’ve been in this situation. Trust me, it’ll work.” And I’m so glad. Thank you guys. You were both correct because I do feel like it made for such a powerful episode.

I just want to say we need some crossovers next season to get more Kasie and Sam together.

That’s what I’m hoping for. I’m like, OK, flying in New York, here I come. I can appear on Zoom. I was like, wherever your lab is. I’m excited.

Now that Kasie has let go of Edna, what’s her next project, what she’s going to be focusing on?

You’re just going to have to wait and see. I’ve talked to some of the writers, I’m pitching some ideas. They’ve got some. I’m very excited.

Vance’s death is something that continues to hang over them and it will for a while, understandably. How is Kasie doing with that loss?

Oh, I mean, I think it affects her. I think it rocks her to at the core. In the Fleet Week episode, we see her having a hard time being in her lab because she’s realizing that some of the last things that Vance did are here. Some of her last memories are here. I think she’s going to have a hard time adjusting if we do get a new director because Kasie is a very loyal person. She obviously cares about her job, but I think it will be difficult for her.

So is it easier for her to have interim directors right now where she doesn’t have to get used to someone permanent?

I think if it was McGee, she could do it. I think if it was someone else stepping in, I don’t know how she’d feel about that.

Speaking of, what does she want in the next permanent director? Does she just want someone who does recognize the work she does and what she needs in the lab?

She wants one simple thing: She wants Vance back. Oh, I want Vance. She wants Vance.

I mean, understandably. What’s coming up for Kasie in the remaining episodes?

Well, I’m going to say less about Kasie and I’m going to tease more that we have some incredible guest stars coming. I’m so excited and I’m trying so hard not to spoil them, but I think the fans will be very pleased when they see who we have.

So returning guest stars?

Yes. We do have some returning guest stars, some familiar faces.

Speaking of amazing guest stars, when I saw Noah Bean in the first part, he was in one scene, I’m like, “He has to be the bad guy. He is not just here for the one scene.”

Yes, yes, yes. So that was the funny thing. So the other funny thing about that is they did not have his streak yet. We’d not seen the second scene, so we had to go back in the middle of the scene and redo a bunch with the streak in his hair.

How did Kasie feel about him being the bad guy? Because he’s the one who was on her case about that upgrade.

She was like, “I was right.” [Laughs] Just wish she had been there for his arrest scene.

What can you preview about the finale and where it leaves Kasie?

I think the finale really rocks the team, the entire team, down to the core. It’s been a season of loss and real big hits, and I think those real big hits are unfortunately going to keep coming. … It is just Kasie bearing down and trying to make sure that the team gets what they need.

How would you describe the finale cliffhanger? Because we know NCIS does cliffhangers so well.

Shocking, nerve-wracking. You better be ready for fall.

Speaking of, what are your hopes for Season 24 for Kasie?

I would love to explore more of her romantic side, a little bit more of her outside the lab, and also some unexpected partnerships. I would love to see Kasie and Parker [Gary Cole] really have to tackle something. Kasie and Torres [Wilmer Valderrama]. Can you imagine Kasie trying to have Torres’ back when he’s running? And she’s like, “Just could you slow down a little bit?” I want to see that.

And I just want to see more Kasie and Knight (Katrina Law) because I love that we have that friendship.

Yeah, that is a very good friendship. I love the friendship triangle of Kasie and Knight and now kind of Torres and Knight and also Palmer and Knight. I was like, actually, no, I’m stepping out of that. I’m not in that triangle. I’m just kind of watching from the outside.

And we have to talk about that 2012 flashback at the beginning of this episode.

[Laughs] My favorite was getting to see Kasey’s college room because I had no idea what they were going to do for the dorm room and it looked so cool. They asked me what I was interested in and I told them how much I love soccer. And I don’t know if you saw the Megan Rapinoe poster’s up there. It was great. They did a great job.

With that flashback, you can understand why Edna meant so much to her.

Yeah, I mean, it really was years of work. It was her best idea, and now it’s completely gone. So I just think it opens up a lot of exciting roads that she might be exploring.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS

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