Alden Parker's Father Suffered a Terrible Fate on NCIS

The world of NCIS is a very dangerous one. The special agents of this team have to fight against unimaginable threats while figuring out how to keep balanced personal lives in the process. The hook of the CBS drama isn't always about catching criminals.

One of the characters who suffers the most is Special Agent Alden Parker (Gary Cole). The NCIS Supervisory hero has made a lot of enemies over the course of the series.

Having a nemesis is nothing compared to the challenge of keeping everyone safe. Dealing with criminals means that the main characters of NCIS have to keep their families and friends away from the dangers of their line of work.

What happened to Alden's father, Roman Parker (Francis X. McCarthy)? Here's what we know about the tragedy that will shape the rest of Alden's tenure on the series.

According to TV Insider, Alden's father was killed by an unidentified attacker. Even if the name of the killer wasn't provided, it is safe to assume that Carla Marino (Rebecca De Mornay) was the one who orchestrated the attack.

The antagonist is the worst criminal Alden has faced in his career. Her intelligence, combined with her resources, turns Carla into the ultimate procedural drama threat.

The plan built to kill Alden's father is a carefully orchestrated piece of work. The NCIS Special Agent was given false information to make him believe that he was one step closer to taking down the Nexus cartel.

NCIS villains know how to make an entrance. Alden was actually led to a meeting with Carla herself. The villain knocked him out. When he returned home after the attack, Alden found his father's dead body waiting for him.

In a show as successful as NCIS, characters need to evolve in order to keep audiences engaged with what they are seeing on the screen. A hero can only be as mighty as the challenges they have to overcome.

Carla is the perfect response to the show's need for an antagonist. The mob boss controls everything that happens in her city, which is why she was able to lure Alden into a trap with ease.

Carla is the leader of the Kansas City mob. She does so much more than distributing drugs. The character is involved in multiple criminal activities that place her near the top of the department's list of most wanted individuals.

The team behind NCIS was careful enough to keep Roman's death under wraps. Gary told TV Insider the following when asked about the making of the episode: "Nobody got the script until I guess maybe a couple weeks before we shot that. I thought it was certainly a dynamic ending. As an actor, selfishly, I was a little bit sad because I really like the actor who plays my father and I like doing those scenes, but I thought it was certainly a surprise."