What Happened To Jimmy Palmer's Wife Breena On NCIS?

"NCIS" is without question one of the most successful shows on TV today, if not ever. The CBS police procedural has run for an astounding 22 seasons and counting, with nearly 500 episodes to its name. That's even more than "Criminal Minds." One of the show's key characters is Jimmy Palmer. Played by actor Brian Dietzen, Jimmy has been there from the beginning, first appearing towards the end of season 1. Since then, he's been a staple of the series. Unfortunately, Mrs. Palmer didn't get so lucky.

Breena Palmer, played by Michelle Pierce, didn't appear in nearly as many episodes of the show. That said, she's no less important. She also made a huge impact, particularly due to the way she exited "NCIS." For fans of the show, Breena Palmer's death was a huge blow and is still discussed today. With that in mind, it's worth examining what exactly happened to her and, perhaps more importantly, why it happened.

Death is just part of any long-running show. That's just the nature of the beast. But some deaths hit particularly hard. Glenn's brutal death in "The Walking Dead," for example, is something fans still talk about to this day. That, as brutal as it was, still was shown to audiences, which made it real. In the case of Breena Palmer, it was like the snap of a finger. Poof, she was gone. That's because Breena was killed off-screen in "NCIS," which made the whole thing more than a little surprising.

"NCIS" season 18 aired as the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging on. The episode "The First Day" aired in February 2021, more than a year into the global catastrophe. It was confirmed by Jimmy personally that his beloved wife died as a result of the coronavirus. "You guys were so great, when, you know, I lost Breena," he says to the team in the episode, while explaining that his mom is moving in to help out. "Between work, single parenting, school, it just got to be too much. So, I called in a lifeline."

That was that. In an interview with ET after the episode aired, Brian Dietzen explained where Jimmy's head was at as this was all unfolding.

"We can see within this week's episode that Jimmy is trying to keep whatever happiness he can, trying to say, 'Hey, my glass is half overflowing here. I'm doing really great,' while we as the audience can see that that may not be the case. He's doing whatever he can just keep his head above water. But there's only so long that that can happen before there's going to be a certain breaking point."

The COVID-19 pandemic was an event far too big for a great deal of media to ignore. In some cases, shows did decide not to address it. In other cases, shows like "Futurama" used the pandemic to fuel its storytelling. In the case of "NCIS," it felt appropriate to address what had happened, specifically the tragic loss of life around the world. As Dietzen explained in that same interview, the death of his character's wife was a way of acknowledging what was happening in the world at that moment.

"I think that was one of the interesting and obviously heartbreaking things about this disease that we've all seen, is these people on the front line were working as doctors who are working as EMTs who have had to go through heartbreak on their own. And yet they're asked to just continue working because if they stop working, then we don't have our frontline there for us anymore. In many ways, this episode turned out to be a recognition of people who have lost others during this pandemic."

Even so, that didn't make the death any less jarring for longtime fans of the show. Breena Palmer wasn't a series regular, but given that Jimmy is an anchor for the series, her death was a big deal. That it happened off screen was a bold choice, but one that was made for a deliberate reason.

In terms of impact versus time on screen, Michelle Pierce's time as Breena Palmer on "NCIS" is pretty impressive. The actress only appeared in a total of six episodes of the show prior to her off-screen passing. But all things come back around and, as of this writing, Pierce has appeared in seven episodes of the show.

In the "NCIS" season 19 episode "The Helpers," Pierce made her return as Breena. Though, this wasn't like bringing back John Goodman as Dan after his death in the "Roseanne" revival. Rather, Breena's posthumous appearance in the show came during a dream sequence that was placed in the beginning of the episode. It sees Jimmy laying with his head in Breena's lap in the middle of a field, as he talks about how much he misses her.

Speaking with TVLine after the episode aired, Brian Dietzen, who also co-wrote the episode, explained why they included the scene in the show.

"The reasoning behind that is not just to give a cool cinematic opening ... I wanted to have Michelle back to the set, and she wanted to come as well. The fact that we were able to have Michelle come back was just such a blessing, as she definitely has been one of my favorites to work with on the show."

"NCIS" is currently streaming on Paramount+, or you can buy seasons of the show on DVD via Amazon.