An open bar. A frothy white veil. A priest hiding a gun in a hollowed-out Bible.

Those are, without a doubt, the ingredients for an NCIS sting-operation wedding. Let’s jump back two weeks and see how we got here!

In the big orange room, Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) is falling asleep on his feet, which Knight (Katrina Law) attributes to his romantic activities with her sister — which she’s totes kewl with, to be clear. (Narrator: she is not totes kewl.)

Sleepiness turns out to be the least of Torres’ problems when the team’s called to a crime scene and Palmer (Brian Dietzen) rolls over the victim of the week to reveal his face. Before you can say “terribly unsubtle,” Torres starts coughing and claims he’s too sick to keep working the crime scene. 

To basically no one’s surprise after that unconvincing display, Torres’ fingerprints turn up on a flask in the pocket of the dead guy, who was carrying a fake military ID but is actually career criminal Vincent Kelso. Side note: having a Kelso in an episode that so heavily features Wilmer Valderrama definitely threw me off. 

Parker (Gary Cole) is irritated to learn that Vance (Rocky Carroll) has Torres on a need-to-know undercover op to bust a gang out of Baltimore that’s using bogus credentials to steal equipment from Navy bases to sell on the black market. 

Nick’s infiltrated the gang posing as low-level bruiser Donny Rico, but the guy calling the shots, Roman (Steven Flynn), is only the middleman. The real goal is to take down the ringleader, Wilk. That means “wolf,” if you’re not up on your Polish.

In his Rico persona, Torres strolls into the bar where the gang runs their business and starts talking tough about stepping into Kelso’s place. This impresses Roman, but Roman’s son (Alexander Bertrand) would clearly prefer that Rico had been the one found shot dead that morning.

Okay, remember the vibe in Abby’s lab back in the day, with the pounding-bass techno punk? Whatever that was, its direct opposite is happening in Palmer’s morgue, where Jimmy’s practicing shaking his groove thang to peppy pop for Victoria’s upcoming daddy/daughter dance. (He’s taking lessons and is the youngest participant by a few decades, from the sound of it.)

Knight, who’s already been politely bounced by Kasie (Diona Reasonover) for complaining about Robin and Nick, interrupts the solo rehearsal for a case update, which itself is interrupted by multiple calls from Robin, who’s worried that Torres is MIA.

Well-meaning Palmer lets it slip that Robin’s had a drawer at Torres’ place for two weeks now, which undercuts Nick’s insistence that their relationship isn’t serious. Knight scoffs that she didn’t get a drawer at Palmer’s place for six whole months, which leads to his realization that he never actually got a drawer at hers.

The drawer is top of mind when Knight meets Torres near Roman’s bar for an update on the case, and she warns him that when it comes to her sister, it starts with a cubic foot of space and ends with an engagement ring.

This brewing argument is cut short when a few of the gang members roll up and demand to know who Torres is talking to. Knight blurts out that she’s his fiancée, which delights the rest of the team when they hear the story after the fact.

Also delighted? Robin (Lilan Bowden), who heads to the Navy Yard to see why Jess isn’t returning her calls. She finds the news of Torres’ undercover work, and I’m quoting here, “soooo hottttt.” When Jess tries to yet again nip this romance in the bud, Robin correctly says that Jess needs to stop parenting her so she can make her own choices. But she incorrectly says that it’s none of Jess’ business because hello, that’s her sister’s BFF co-worker, which does make it a little bit Jess’ business.

At the bar, a young tough named Lenny (Jesse Howland) asks “Rico” for advice on picking up women, including a bar patron named Lana (Yvonne Zima). But Lana clearly prefers Torres, who suggests Lenny would have more luck if he opened his mouth less. A bold deviation from the usual “just be yourself” advice.

Roman’s son, who’s still got beef with Rico, sends him to detail Kelso’s car so it’s clean as a whistle to be dumped. Torres grumbles but does it, and he tips off the team about the location. Good thing, too, because they find ghost guns Torres didn’t know about hidden in the wheel well.

This discovery ropes in Baltimore detective Martin Alonzo (Daniel Zacapa), who helps himself to the NCIS breakroom coffee as he shares that Kelso was working undercover for him. He susses out that they’ve got a man inside and warns them not to let Nick go down like Kelso did. Y’all, I’m not sure I trust this grizzled detective man.

Unaware that Kelso was an undercover brother, Torres is at the bar trying to talk Lenny into getting him in touch with Wilk. Lenny, who really just wants more dating advice, says not even Roman meets Wilk face-to-face. It’s all done remotely.

Then Roman summons Torres to his office to grill him about the secret he’s been keeping. Nick gropes around for a weapon and settles on a handy liquor bottle, but Roman’s actually over the moon about Rico’s engagement and wants to know when the wedding’s happening so he can stop by with a beautiful wedding gift. Ooohhh, what does Roman give to newlyweds? I neeeed to knowwwwww. I bet it’s something silver and engraved. Very old-school.

My guess surely can’t be far off, because Roman then gets pinged on his ancient Palm Pilot, which, like the ghost guns, is too low-tech to be traced. 

This sparks a plan, which comes together at Parker’s plant daddy paradise of a house, where the plant daddy himself suggests that a wedding would be a great venue to clone Roman’s Palm Pilot. Torres and Knight reluctantly agree to serve as the decoy couple.

All that’s left is to get Vance on board, and like any father of the bride, Leon starts to negotiate over what he’ll pay for. In the end, they settle on an open bar, a buffet, and DJ — but absolutely no to a live band.

With one week to plan a convincing wedding, Knight calls in her five-times-engaged sister, and Robin takes over like a champ, organizing every detail from flowers to cakes to place settings in the big orange room. She even tries to get Jess to go wedding dress shopping with her, but big sis blows her off.

This prompts Palmer to get a little stern, asking Knight if she’s seen how happy Nick and Robin are together. “Who are you trying to protect here?” he gently asks.

Jess is ruminating on all of that as she and Nick stand at the altar to perform the world’s most awkward kiss when the aforementioned gun-toting priest (Nathan Ray Clark) hits that point of the ceremony. (Don’t worry; he’s an NCIS agent who studied theology in college.)

Robin’s on the scene playing the wedding planner, and nobody seems concerned that she’s rubbing elbows with Roman’s entire gang. This includes Lenny, who kept his mouth shut long enough to convince the lovely Lana to come along as his date. Heck, even Alonzo crashes the reception, which I strongly side-eye.

Roman shows up too, and his beautiful wedding gift turns out to be a fat envelope of cash. Okay, don’t get me wrong. It’s a thoughtful gift. I was just hoping for a fancy blender or a really expensive Le Creuset or something like that.

But hey, the man clearly loves love and clinks his champagne glass until the happy couple performs another painful-looking kiss. McGee (Sean Murray), playing the event photographer, insists on snapping some shots of the trio with a camera that’s rigged to connect to Roman’s Palm Pilot Bluetooth. 

Robin watches closely as Torres and Knight stiffly sway through their first dance. Kasie and Palmer have much better flow dancing in the kitchen where the team’s set up a surveillance hub. But they get back down to business when McGee’s cloning program reveals that Roman’s Palm Pilot had been wiped clean 10 minutes earlier. Then the man himself is found dead on the bathroom floor after complaining about an upset stomach.

Knight and Torres are still dancing to the world’s longest version of “At Last” when the song comes to an end and Robin cuts in (as all good wedding planners do, obviously). McGee makes the rounds with his camera to quietly tell Knight that she needs to stall, so she grabs the microphone to give a toast to her new husband, who has to mouth his undercover name to her. LOL.

Her impromptu speech is purportedly about her father at first being opposed to the two of them dating because he was afraid of losing the two people he loves most in this world, and it ends with her looking directly at Nick and Robin as she gives her indirect blessing.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Hilariously, Wilk is brought down by Vance’s cost-cutting measures. The NCIS director would only spring for beer and wine at the reception, so the team’s suspicious when they see Lana giving the bartender a bottle of whiskey that was served to Roman just before he died.

All hell breaks loose when Lana, aka Wilk, realizes it’s a set up and the whole gang scrambles. We love a girl boss! Knight tosses the wedding cake into her path — all four tiers, which is at least two more than Vance authorized —and draws her gun. Yet more proof that women! need! pockets! 

Once the baddies are taken into custody, Knight asks Torres if he wants to grab a drink since their wedding night’s still young. He declines, citing plans with Robin, and for the first time, Jess actually sounds okay with it.

She’s so okay, in fact, that when Torres invites her along, she agrees. Hey, look at that! Knight really is totes kewl this time around.

Stray shots

• So Detective Alonzo was a red herring after all. Guess the guy just likes free food.
• This week, we learned that Torres is into roleplay, and I have… a number of follow-up questions. Also, why didn’t Jimmy have a drawer at Jess’s place? Also also, does the woman in the wanted picture behind Parker’s desk look a little like Jane Seymour? The petition to get Dr. Quinn on the show starts here!
• Speaking of Jimmy and Jess, this episode has officially killed my hopes for a Knalmer reunion. Knight was out there looking ravishing in a wedding dress, and not a single longing look from Palmer? Not a tiny bit of pining or wistfulness or even a “you look so nice”? Y’all, I fear my ship has sailed, and I’m not happy about it.
• When it comes to wedding planning, would you opt for live music, or would you spring for hard liquor at the open bar? Discuss!