NCIS season 23 episode 5 recap: Does Congressman Wallace die?

NCIS season 23 episode 5 revisits a decades-old murder case after a prisoner escaped with only three weeks left in his sentence. Thomas Mulligan's prison break forces the team to reopen the case, with an old friend's help, and uncover family secrets and right past wrongs.

What starts as an escaped convict case becomes a revenge plot, with the NCIS team looking for Mulligan's son, Jason Cross, who is about to murder Congressman James Wallace. At the end of NCIS season 23 episode 5, Parker and retired agent Strickland manage to stop his plan. But while Wallace is alive, he's also going to jail for his crime from 30 years ago.

Titled Now and Then, the episode brings a lot of twists in the investigation, with each discovery heightening the tension. It may have taken the NCIS team 30 years to solve the case, but it is now done, and the real culprit is finally going behind bars.

Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers for NCIS season 23 episode 5. Reader's discretion is advised.

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What happens to Congressman Wallace in NCIS season 23 episode 5?

Alden Parker and Vera Strickland's odd partnership in NCIS season 23 episode 5 gives fans a lot of fun banter. They also successfully intercept Jason Cross before he can fulfill his plan of killing Congressman James Wallace. Jason is fueled with revenge because he's the real culprit. Reopening the decades-old Louis Burke murder case provides new evidence.

NCIS team revisits an old case (Image via @TheNCISverse/Facebook)

Burke was killed decades ago because he supposedly beat up the Congressman's grandfather, Old Wallace. The town kept quiet about Burke's killer because he was a town bully. But as it turns out, despite all his faults, Burke didn't beat up and kill Old Wallace—he was framed by none other than Wallace's grandson, the now-Congressman James Wallace.

He killed his grandfather to get his property, which the old man planned to donate to the town. However, it's a valuable property, boasting a large aquifer beneath that could provide the town with sufficient water for years to come. Congressman Wallace has decided that it's a huge payday, killed his grandfather, leading the property to be passed to the next of kin, which is him.

He had sold it to a water company for a substantial amount, leaving the town impoverished. However, he gets what he deserves at the end of NCIS season 23 episode 5. With his DNA matching the DNA in the bat used to beat up and kill his grandfather, he's arrested, and the NCIS has enough evidence to keep him in jail for many years.

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An old friend helps the NCIS team in NCIS season 23 episode 5

Then and Now gets a blast from the past in the form of Vera Strickland, a retired NCIS agent who worked on Burke's case many years ago alongside Agent Gibbs. She's a key player in helping the team tie up loose ends in the 30-year-old murder case, despite Parker's insistence to keep her on the back foot.

Vera Strickland (Image via @TheNCISverse/Facebook)

Strickland's presence in episode 5 not only gives fans nostalgia but also a lot of fun banter between her and Parker, as well as McGee. She also has something that the new NCIS team doesn't have to help solve the case, which is a VCR to play the VHS tapes of interrogations from the case, which took place three decades ago.

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NCIS season 23 episode 5: Is Thomas Mulligan innocent?

NCIS season 23 episode 5 confirms that Thomas Mulligan is innocent and he didn't kill Louis Burke back in the '90s, as seen in NCIS: Origins. He only took the fall decades ago because the woman he was having an affair with, who is pregnant with his son, Lainey, is the real killer. He confessed to the murder to save Lainey and their son.

And while he does break out of prison in episode 5, being imprisoned for the murder he didn't commit for three decades is enough for the judge to let him go. He isn't charged for killing the other inmate who escaped because it was done in self-defense. Mulligan ends the episode a free man and with a much better relationship with his son.

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Catch NCIS season 23 episode 5, along with the show's previous episodes, on CBS and Paramount+.