Todd Lasance Previews ‘NCIS: Sydney’ Finale: JD ‘Does Lose Control’

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” coming into a franchise like NCIS, says Sydney star Todd Lasance.

“You’re coming in going, oh, you’re part of this amazing franchise. It’s been running forever, and that’s incredible. You feel you’re part of the family, but then two minutes later, you’re like, oh, I hope we don’t stuff this up. I hope that people switch on and then come along for the ride and respond to the characters,” he continues. That’s why he’s glad that the first international version has been a hit.

And NCIS: Sydney shows no signs of slowing down, ending its eight-episode first season with a finale that puts Lasance’s JD right at the center when his son is kidnapped — and in order to get him back, he’d have to swap the criminal that the team had been after all season (played by Georgina Haig) and just got into custody.

“What I love about the eight episodes is this is the culmination of little breadcrumbs of information, little clues that you don’t necessarily know are relevant until the final episode. And then actually when the episode ends and the cliffhanger you get left with, you’re like, oh, wow, this has been planted since Episode 1,” Lasance teases.

“This is also the culmination of the full 360 for JD. This is the complete other end of the spectrum that you’ve never got to experience with the character before,” he adds. “This is the actor’s dream, this episode as well, because you get to dive into the emotional element that you’d never seen before on our series, and also the heavy element of the subject matter. This isn’t usually where they track the tone of the series. So it was also really cool for NCIS to go deep into this emotional family kind of stakes of it all and for my character, too. This is the collision and the explosion of all the elements of our series and our eight episodes clashing into one.”

The episode, which is his favorite (and he knows he may be a bit biased), will see JD willing to do whatever it takes; the promo already shows him throwing a chair in the interrogation room. The only problem? The time he might not be able to think with his badge or rationally is exactly when he needs that investigator side — it’s the part of him that can find his son.

“Finding these elements throughout each scene was the key,” Lasance explains. (Not only did they shoot scenes out of order, but they were also filming Episodes 6 and 8 at the same time.) “What I love about these scenes and the way that it was written is that there’s times when he’s thinking with the badge, he’s actively using the law enforcement elements and he’s thinking with clarity. And then there are also other elements where it’s the complete other end of the spectrum where he loses it, where he does lose control, where his emotions get the best of him, where his relationship with his son, his family gets the best of him and takes over.”

It’s a storyline that is easily relatable — especially for Lasance, a father of two (his son was born during the series). “To be given this role where this particular storyline relates to my son so closely, it was like universally meant to be for me to have this role so that I could reflect the experience that JD was going through and obviously translate that from my own experience having kids, and particularly just having had a son,” he says. “It was emotionally one of the most full-on experiences I’ve had of my career, which was fantastic. You want to get this kind of content to be able to translate on the screen. So yeah, it’s beautiful. On one hand, he’s approaching it from a law enforcement perspective and then he’s also, at the end of the day, a father. Those two elements clash all the time, which is great.”

The finale also offers a look at a relationship we’ve only heard about thus far: his with his ex-wife. “They give you that little teaser where it’s just enough to go, oh, wait, what? What’s happening here? And then the dynamic is introduced, but then they leave enough of it so that you want more and that there’s so much more to explore as well,” he shares. “So there’s a lot coming.”

So buckle in for the wild ride. “You got to deal with his relationship side of things, find the history there, dealing with his team, dealing with Mackey [Olivia Swann], but then also dealing with the relationship with the son as well,” Lasance teases. “It’s all happening for JD.”

NCIS: Sydney, Season 1 Finale, Tuesday, January 23, 8/7c, CBS