Yahoo Lifestyle Rocky Carroll Talks Directing an 'NCIS' Episode Full of Murder, Drugs, Romance and Pastries (Exclusive)
Ever since Alden Parker (Gary Cole) took over Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) desk at NCIS, his co-workers–and viewers—have been introduced to a variety of delectable, international pastries that they may not have tasted before.
This week on NCIS, Parker’s passion for pastries introduces the case of the week when Eleni (Melina Kanakaredes), the owner of his favorite bakery, becomes a murder suspect when one of her employees is found dead with his face buried in a mixer full of baklava dough, and while there’s no Navy or Marine angle to the case, it’s Parker who wants to come to her rescue.
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“Parker has been going on the regular now to get his pastries [at Kostakis]. And we see there seems to be a very budding relationship, the love of food, the love of pastries and also a real connection between the two of them,” Rocky Carroll, who stars as Leon Vance and also directed the “Baker’s Man” episode, tells Parade.
Eleni is out making deliveries when Parker enters the bakery on this particular morning, and he notices that something is a little off with the feel and the vibe inside his favorite Greek pastry shop. Parker gets to the squad room to find out that there is an active crime scene at the bakery, so the team returns to find out what happened and learns that there was a murder.
“I don’t want to give too much away to the fans, but Eleni suddenly becomes the centerpiece of the investigation,” Carroll continues. “This person that Parker thought that he knew so well, all arrows point to her being either directly or indirectly involved in the murder.”
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And the case is complicated even more by the discovery that the Kostakis Bakery neighborhood is the center of a drug war. And Eleni might also be central to that.
“It looks like not only is she much more than just the woman who runs the Greek bakery; she might be behind one of the biggest drug rings in the city as well,” Carroll says. “All arrows point to her as being either a murder for hire, somebody who’s put a hit out on somebody. Or she’s running a drug ring, and the more we dig into it, the more it looks like she is the culprit.”
Kanakaredes has a long-running association with CBS. From the start of her career on the daytime drama Guiding Light to her tenure on CSI: NY, and the one constant in her characters is that she has played a Greek American.
“Kostakis Bakery existed before we sent out the casting, threw our net out into the ocean there,” Carroll says. “The writer [Andrew Bartels] of the episode had always envisioned it being a Greek bakery. So, that was established first, and Melina just happened to fit the bill perfectly.”
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Now, it remains to be seen if she will be exonerated and become a recurring character as a potential love interest for Parker, who also reveals in this episode where his love for pastries began.
Despite this being the 25th episode of NCIS he's directed, Carroll says there was a challenge in the "Baker's Man" in that the bakery scenes weren’t shot on a set built on the soundstage, but rather inside a real bakery.
“Because of the time of the year that we shot it in, we don’t get a lot of daylight,” he explains. “It goes from daylight to dark almost. At 3 o’clock the sun’s out, but 4:30-5 o’clock you’re chasing the sun. So, learning how to deal with the elements and try to keep continuity where basically you’re chasing the elements that was the real challenge for this episode."
Also, in tonight's episode, tensions heighten when Torres’ (Wilmer Valderrama) secret romance is discovered and one of his co-workers is really not happy about it.
NCIS airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Episodes stream the next day on Paramount+.
