While NCIS doesn’t have nearly as high a body count as shows like Game of Thrones, 24 or The Sopranos, a fair amount of important characters have been killed off on the CBS procedural over the years. The latest of the bunch is Rocky Carroll’s Leon Vance, who was fatally shot in NCIS’s 500th episode last month on the 2026 TV schedule. While showrunner Steven Binder has said that Vance’s death was necessary to remind people of the “real stakes” on NCIS, he also admitted in a recent interview that there are two character deaths he regrets in hindsight, and I completely agree about one of them.
