'NCIS' Wilmer Valderrama Reacts to the Major Changes Coming for Torres in Season 24
Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers from NCIS Season 24, Episode 3.Nick Torres has spent 10 years proving he can survive just about anything, but what happens when the most dangerous person he encounters is the man he used to be? In NCIS Season 24, Episode 3, “Sleeping Dogs,” Wilmer Valderrama’s special agent confronts a past he thought he’d left behind when someone begins using his retired undercover identity to commit a string of murders. The case forces Torres to reckon with the darker side of his work, and, according to Valderrama, it could be the beginning of some major changes for the character.
In an interview with Collider, Valderrama opened up about the thinking behind Torres’ brutal introduction in “Sleeping Dogs,” his complicated reunion with former handler Walt Keller (Mike O’Malley), and why the agent’s apparent interest in returning to the CIA isn’t quite what it seems. He also offered a tantalizing preview of what’s ahead, promising that the coming developments will change Torres’ relationship with his team.
‘NCIS’ Season 24 Forces Nick Torres To Confront His Darkest Past
“Sleeping Dogs” wastes little time reminding viewers that Torres has a history far removed from his current life at NCIS. When someone resurrects his former undercover identity, Dante Navarro, the investigation pulls him back toward a version of himself he’s spent years trying to leave behind. It’s a particularly unsettling prospect for an agent who has gradually learned to trust his colleagues and embrace the family he’s found at NCIS.
For Valderrama, however, this darker side of Torres was never an afterthought. The actor explained that the character was created 10 years ago with his background in mind. "We conceived this character with a very mysterious background, with an undetermined and classified archive of folders that had cases that had taken Torres to places and lengths and distances that most agents haven’t," he told Collider. "I always knew that he had done some, probably some really shocking things to, one, stay covered, two, to get the bad guy, and three, to just survive."
The episode’s opening sequence makes that history impossible to ignore. Valderrama said it was important to begin the episode with a scene that would grab the audience’s attention. The scene in question walks the viewer through Nick undercover as Dante in the past, when he strayed into a bar and killed a man who'd been harassing the bartender as part of his mission. “This is the Torres you’ve never met,” he said, relating to the first scene in the episode, "and now he’s going to battle with that animal that’s trying to wake up in him."
His struggle in this episode is about what happens when the person you needed to become to survive no longer fits the life you’ve built. Valderrama sees that conflict as something audiences can recognize in their own lives, describing it as “fighting what made you who you are while embracing what you’ve become.” The opening scene also reminds the audience that the job takes a toll long after an investigation ends. "The idea was to say... the hunting of bad guys is never pretty, and you might make it clean when you just arrest somebody and put on handcuffs, but there are individuals out there that are keeping them safe, and such freedoms can only come at a cost of self-sacrifice. And I think he sacrificed so much of himself, and sanity, and reality, and morality in the name of his country and in the name of justice.”
He added that the person who catches a criminal might still be thinking about the experience “the next two, three, four, five years after that.” For Torres, that lingering cost may be impossible to ignore as his former identity resurfaces.
Walt Keller’s Return Raises a Disturbing Question About Torres’ Identity
Walt Keller's arrival makes that struggle far more personal. O’Malley plays the retired handler, who knew Torres during his undercover days and offers a perspective his current teammates may never have. Their reunion brings an uncomfortable assertion from Keller: Nick Torres is the cover, and Dante Navarro is the real man underneath. It’s a devastating thing to hear from someone who once knew you professionally and personally. It also raises a question that NCIS has plenty of room to explore: How much of Torres’ old identity is genuinely behind him, and how much has he simply learned to suppress?
Valderrama described the confrontation as a moment that awakens something in Torres he didn’t expect to feel again. Keller challenges the agent to consider why he seems more comfortable with the man he used to be than the person he is today. For Torres, it’s not simply about whether he can still handle dangerous assignments, but whether the life he’s built has changed him in ways he’s struggling to accept.
“I think it’s a very relatable arc and a really fun story,” Valderrama said. He also pointed to the challenge of playing a character audiences have known for a decade. “You live with somebody for 10 years, and you love him for what he is and how fun and all that stuff, but beneath it all there’s a human being that’s just begging to stay alive.” That tension gives Keller’s accusation weight, as Torres has spent years becoming someone his teammates can trust, but he may not know how to reconcile that person with the operative Keller remembers.
Is Nick Torres Really Considering Leaving NCIS for the CIA?
One of the episode’s most intriguing moments comes at the end, when Torres asks whether a CIA job is still available. After everything he's just confronted, the question sounds like the start of a major career change. Valderrama, however, sees the moment differently. “It’s not quite jumping ship,” the actor explained. Instead, he sees Torres’ question as an attempt to discover whether the person he used to be is still in there. “I have to throw myself back in the deep end,” Valderrama said, describing his character’s need to find out “what Torres comes out of the debris.”
Torres isn’t necessarily looking for an exit from NCIS so much as an answer to a question about himself. Can he still do the work that once defined him? And if he can, does that mean he belongs back in that world? Valderrama pointed to Torres’ instinct to protect vulnerable people as a crucial part of the answer. The agent has never been particularly defined by his life outside work; instead, his sense of purpose comes from serving his country and protecting innocent people, especially children whose circumstances remind him of the helplessness his own family experienced.
“That’s what I love about Torres,” Valderrama said, explaining that when the agent sees something happening to a young person, “he sees red.” Those situations take him back to when he and his family felt helpless, triggering his instinct to intervene. The instinct can make Torres an extraordinary agent, but it can also leave him vulnerable to losing himself in the work. The question is whether he can rediscover his purpose without surrendering the person he’s become.
Wilmer Valderrama Promises “Crazy” Changes for Torres This Season
Whatever Torres decides about his future, Valderrama made one thing clear: “Sleeping Dogs” is setting the stage for more than a single character-focused episode. “The only thing I can tease you is that there are some crazy things about to happen with Torres this season,” the actor said. He added that the developments would change the dynamic between Torres and his team, suggesting the fallout from this storyline could extend well beyond his confrontation with Keller, an interesting prospect for a character who's spent a decade learning to be part of a team. Torres may be a lone wolf by nature, but his relationships at NCIS have become an important part of his life. If revisiting Dante forces him to reconsider his identity, it could also change how he fits into the family he’s built.
Meanwhile, NCIS Season 24 is already reshaping its wider ensemble. Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) has stepped into the director’s office, and the possibility of Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) eventually succeeding him raises another question about the team’s future. Torres’ storyline adds a more personal kind of uncertainty to those changes. As Torres confronts the man he used to be, the biggest question may not be whether Dante Navarro is still alive inside him, but what Torres will have to give up to find out.
“Sleeping Dogs” airs Tuesday, October 20, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, with next-day streaming on Paramount+.
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