NCIS: Sydney Fall Finale Recap 12/16/25: Season 3 Episode 9 “Heaven and Nature”
Tonight on CBS NCIS: Sydney airs with an all-new Tuesday, December 16, 2025, season 3 episode 9 called, “Heaven and Nature” and we have your weekly NCIS: Sydney recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS season 3 episode 9, “Heaven and Nature” as per the CBS synopsis, “McGee and Torres try to recover a stolen truck filled with toys for the Navy’s annual Christmas drive while the truth about Parker’s mother is finally revealed.
Also, Knight is given her first NCIS: Elite mission, which involves tracking down a former member of the team.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM ET for our NCIS Sydney recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
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In tonight’s NCIS episode, Parker’s investigation into his mother’s death all began because he started seeing Lily. Lily was a little girl he remembered. She was about Parker’s age. He remembered on the night he almost died that her name was Lily, but not much else. He couldn’t recall any details to help.
He thought she was a ghost at first at first until he found a photo of her in the news article about his mom’s death. His mother allegedly drove drunk. There was an issue with that ruling because the woman in that casket was murdered. She didn’t die accidentally. And she was not in fact Parker’s mother.
Parker exhumed his mother’s remains only to learn that it wasn’t his mother buried in that grave. Nor can anyone tell him where his mother’s remains are or if she was actually dead.
The official autopsy seemed to be of the woman on Jimmy’s table. It was of a murder victim who was made to look like she was killed accidentally. Kasie was running the woman’s DNA. Jimmy was assisting with a facial reconstruction of what the woman looked like when she was killed. They were doing their best to identify her.
Eleanor Parker was still considered missing. Her son suspected that the woman might have been misidentified as his mother. His team tracked down the state trooper for him. His name is Lester Burm.
He was seventy-nine. His memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. He retired in 2006 and he didn’t remember the case at all. He said a sign of his ineptitude was the fact that there was a little girl nearby. He said he shouldn’t have allowed her to be so close to the scene and so it was doubtable he knew the girl or that she was Lily.
It’s what Parker thought until they got a photo of the woman in the grave. The murder victim looked a lot alike the woman in Burm’s photos. It was his wife. His first wife.
He got remarried and it was his second wife that died three years ago. His first wife seemingly disappeared. She was also shared half the DNA of whoever’s lipstick was found on the wineglass from a previous murder scene. This murder scene was that of Parker’s father. He thought it was Carla Marino’s lipstick on the wineglass at first. He was wrong. It was this mystery woman’s.
Parker became all the more determined to find out who the woman on the table was. Knight’s hunch could be right. She might’ve been Burm’s first wife. Her name was Judy Burm. She left her husband because of his job. He would often take their daughter out to the scene.
He failed to mention the girl in the photo was his daughter, Lily. He said Judy left Lily one day. He’s been looking for them. He stopped for a while when he met his second wife and now he was back to searching. His daughter last went by the name of Nelly.
Parker had Burm come stay at the station while he dug through DNA Database for the lipstick woman. Her name is Penelope Johnson. She could have shortened it to Nelly. Johnson also happened to be Parker’s mother’s maiden name.
She was Eleanor Johnson Parker. Only Penelope Johnson was indeed Lily. She recognized Parker and he recognized her. He just didn’t know where he knew her from. He blocked out the memory. It was Lily who was now Penelope that told him the story. Their mothers were friends.
Eleanor used to teach Judy piano. Lily used to play with Parker during the lessons. Lily told him a secret. She told him that her father abuses her mother. It got so bad that Judy even told Eleanor herself. Then Burm found out about it. Eleanor got her son out of there. She circled back for Judy and Lily to be told that Burm had taken off with Lily.
They pursued them in Eleanor’s car. Burm drove them off the road. He killed Judy. Lily was a witness to it all. Eleanor was believed to have died in the accident yet she lived. She also got Lily away from her father.
Lily was going to go live with Eleanor’s cousin. They made it to Toledo when Burm caught up to them. Eleanor hid Lily and the last thing that Lily saw was her father dragging Eleanor out of the motel.
It was always Eleanor’s plan to go home afterwards to her family. Burm must have killed her to stop her from telling her story. Lily said there was a lake nearby. Parker went to Director Vance to get it dredged. They found the car that his mother. She had been killed for doing the right thing and Lily told Roman Parker all of this when she visited him. Then he was killed.
He never got the chance to tell his kids that their mother never abandoned them. She instead died a hero. She helped a young girl in need get to safety and now Parker helps people too. Parker’s sister was on a ship in South America. She didn’t make the funeral, but Parker’s friends made sure it was beautiful.
They just gotten back after finding their stolen Christmas toys for children who have lost a loved one that served in the armed forces. Their informant/buddy Sammy helped them. Sammy gotten beaten up for it and he didn’t get the toy like he was promised for his niece.
Only Sammy was still a good guy.
Knight also heard back from NCIS ELITE. She was being assigned a mission. The target was Eleanor Bishop. She was a former NCIS Agent before she became CIA.
THE END!