When speaking with Parade About “NCIS” Season 20, Episode 8: Diona Reasonover said that Scott Williams wrote the original script, which was slightly different. Reasonover initially wanted to center the story on Jessica Knight and Jimmy Palmer. The two have notably had a budding romance since the end of Season 19, and the gunpoint situation involving Knight and her sister, Robin, would have featured Jimmy there in place of Kasie. “At that time, that was still very much in development, and we weren’t sure where that was going to go,” Reasonover was speaking of the dinner scene. “So, Scott was like, ‘We’ve got to do someone other than Knight and Jimmy.’ And I literally begged him. I said, ‘Please not Kasie, she’s been through so much.’ And he said, ‘Baby, it’s Kasie or it’s nobody.’ So here we are,” Elle continued.
Williams thought they needed to be someone else than the couple on the team came from an episode with tensions already in Williams’ relationship. Episode 4 of Season 20 was the same episode. “Leave No Trace.” It featured Knight’s ex boyfriend (Caleb Alexander Smith) which made Jimmy and Knight talk about the seriousness in their relationship. Reasonover explained that Kasie had been at gunpoint before she made the decision to use Kasie. This was because it happened so often to her on the program.