NCIS Season 24 Episode 3 Recap: “Sleeping Dogs” Pulls Torres Back Toward the Dark

NCIS Season 24 Episode 3, “Sleeping Dogs,” makes Nick Torres confront a version of himself he can no longer dismiss as an old assignment. Wilmer Valderrama leads the hour opposite guest star Mike O’Malley as Walt Keller, the former handler who treats Torres’ departure from undercover work as a personal disappointment.

Gary Cole’s Parker, Michael Weatherly’s Director Tony DiNozzo, Sean Murray’s McGee and Katrina Law’s Knight approach the case from different positions. Yet the most disturbing evidence initially reaches Brian Dietzen’s Jimmy Palmer and Diona Reasonover’s Kasie Hines: recordings of a colleague whose capacity for violence sounds painfully convincing.

Dante Navarro Returns Before Torres Can Explain Him

The opening looks back 13 years to Torres’ undercover life. A criminal threatens a bar owner’s young daughter, and Torres kills him in the bathroom. Protecting an informant’s family supplies a motive, but the scene immediately makes his methods uncomfortable.

In the present, a woman’s body is found in a burned car. She is identified as paralegal Mandy Dubrow, while the vehicle leads investigators to Dante Navarro—a supposedly retired hitman identity Torres used to infiltrate a Baltimore crime family.

The killing also echoes Dante’s use of a garrote. Someone has revived both the name and its frightening reputation. More deaths emerge, making this a pattern that Torres cannot explain simply by producing his badge.

The premise gives Valderrama a substantial conflict. Torres knows what Dante was supposed to accomplish. The harder question is what performing that role allowed him to feel.

Walt Keller Treats Torres’ Growth as Weakness

Torres and Knight visit Keller at his secluded cabin. His apparent emergency turns out to be a test, introducing a man who still wants control over how his former operative reacts.

Keller recognizes the victims’ connection to the old crime-family case. Their changed identities concealed that they had worked around the organization and supplied testimony. Dante’s name makes the surviving witnesses afraid, giving the killer leverage beyond the violence itself.

Keller’s expertise makes him useful, but his treatment of Torres quickly becomes the episode’s central warning. He pushes alcohol despite Torres’ sobriety and describes his life at NCIS as comfortable decline. He also raises the possibility of a CIA side assignment.

O’Malley makes the relationship persuasive because Keller can slide from familiarity into contempt without treating those as different kinds of behavior. He presents his ability to hurt Torres as evidence that he understands him.

The Recordings Expose What Dante Did

Jimmy and Kasie hear an old interrogation in which Torres tortures Michael “Mickey” Fallon, played by Lucius Baybak. The recording shakes their understanding of the colleague they know.

A reference to Grace connects that interrogation to the current investigation. Grace turns out to be a boat associated with $10 million stolen from the crime family, creating an apparent financial explanation for the killings.

Torres and Keller question Mickey, but he is shot before they can resolve the whole story. Another person is wounded, and Torres stays to help rather than pursuing the shooter.

That choice gives Keller another opening. He calls compassion a failure, arguing that Torres belongs in the danger he once inhabited. Their confrontation escalates until Torres draws his gun on him.

The scene does not prove Keller’s view of Torres correct. It shows how effectively he can provoke the reaction he wants and then use that reaction to validate himself.

Parker Offers a Different Kind of Support

Torres eventually acknowledges to Parker that his fear extends beyond having committed violence for an assignment. He is troubled by how much he enjoyed the feeling that came with it.

Parker gives him room to say that without turning the admission into a fixed definition of his character. Keller insists the violent persona is the truth; Parker recognizes that a person can carry that history and still make different choices.

The contrast provides the episode’s strongest emotional argument. Torres has already demonstrated change by helping the wounded civilian. Keller needs him to interpret that as weakness because his recruitment pitch depends on making ordinary responsibility feel like self-betrayal.

Valderrama’s uncertainty matters more than another declaration that Torres is a good agent. He can accept Parker’s support while remaining vulnerable to the older man’s explanation of who he is.

That support also has a complicated history. In TV Insider’s interview with Valderrama, the actor connects Torres’ willingness to confide in Parker to their shared understanding of crossed lines, including Parker’s involvement in avenging Vance. He describes Torres’ reference to Parker’s recent past as partly deflection. That reading makes their conversation more interesting: Torres seeks a voice of reason while resisting how fully he will let that person see him.

The Missing Money Leads Back to Keller

The team locates the bookkeeper tied to the stolen money. His connection to the rifle used against Mickey makes him a separate part of the present-day violence; the case should not be reduced to one killer carrying out every shooting.

He says a federal agent took the $10 million in exchange for immunity. The name he supplies is an alias Keller used, exposing the former handler’s concealed involvement.

Tony has also been watching Keller’s suspicious movements. That is a useful role for the new director: he can recognize a compromised mentor without taking Torres’ emotional story away from him.

The money trail reveals transfers connected to Sasha Norris. Torres recognizes the link to his informant Ray’s daughter and leaves to confront the truth himself.

Sasha Has Been Using Dante’s Name

Keller lied about Ray’s family being safely out of danger. The crime family murdered them after Ray testified. Sasha survived by hiding under a bed, leaving the child Torres once tried to protect to grow up with that loss.

Nicolette Doke plays Sasha, the person using Dante’s identity in the revenge killings. Keller admits taking the money and using it to support her. The financial trail explains his hidden connection to Sasha, while her motive reaches beyond recovering the stolen cash.

Torres finds Keller at the bar, where Sasha arrives armed and shoots the former handler. Torres identifies himself as Dante and apologizes for failing her father. For a moment, it appears he might reach her.

She lowers her rifle but has another weapon. Keller shoots and kills her before she can shoot Torres. His intervention saves Torres in that encounter, yet it does not erase the lies and compromised decisions that brought them there.

The ending needs that distinction. Keller can recognize an immediate threat and still be a damaging influence whose account of Torres deserves skepticism.

McGee’s SecNav Possibility Remains a Future Question

McGee’s meeting with the Secretary of the Navy continues the opportunity introduced in our “Clean Slate” recap and review. He is being considered as a possible successor when her term ends in two years.

That is a prospect rather than a promotion or departure. It gives him something to consider while Torres faces a much more immediate temptation to change his work.

Final Verdict

“Sleeping Dogs” is stronger as a Torres story than as a murder mystery. Its financial clues move briskly, and Sasha’s tragedy receives less space than the confrontation between the two men shaping Torres’ understanding of himself. Keller’s accountability also remains frustratingly uncertain.

Still, the episode makes that character conflict worth following. The recordings disturb his friends, Parker offers support without denial, and Keller exploits the part of Torres that misses the danger. The final visit to the cabin is troubling because Torres returns knowing considerably more about Keller’s failings.

The result is an absorbing, uneasy hour that gives Valderrama meaningful material and leaves a consequential question open: what will Torres choose to do with the darkness he recognizes?

NCIS Season 24 Episode 3 Ending Explained

Is Torres Leaving NCIS for the CIA?

Torres returns to Keller’s cabin and asks whether the CIA side job is still available. The scene establishes renewed interest in undercover work. It does not show him resigning from NCIS, accepting formal CIA employment or leaving the team. Valderrama’s interview with Entertainment Weekly frames the decision as a search for a new balance between Torres’ old undercover instincts and his life with the team. Asked about a possible exit, he says the story is not currently signaling that Torres is going anywhere, while stopping short of guaranteeing his long-term future. He also teases consequences for how Knight, Kasie and Palmer see their colleague; those are future developments, not confrontations resolved in this episode.

Who Is the New Dante Navarro?

Sasha Norris uses the identity for revenge after her family is murdered. Keller took the missing $10 million and sent support to her while concealing the family’s fate from Torres. The bookkeeper’s involvement in Mickey’s shooting is a separate piece of the case.

Why Does Keller Kill Sasha?

After Sasha lowers her rifle, she has a second weapon and remains a threat to Torres. Keller shoots her. That immediate danger explains his intervention without absolving his earlier misconduct or establishing that his judgment about Torres’ identity is correct.

When Is the Next Episode of NCIS?

NCIS Season 24 Episode 4, “Like and Subscribe,” airs Tuesday, October 27, 2026, from 8:00–9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. The team investigates a murdered sailor who competed on an online game show, while Tony faces an intimidating threat of his own.

Watch live with Paramount+ Premium, or stream the episode the following day, Wednesday, October 28, on Paramount+. “Sleeping Dogs” is available for next-day streaming Wednesday, October 21.