Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Tony & Ziva episode “Fire Sale” are ahead!
If you thought killer self-driving cars on NCIS: Tony & Ziva were wild, the newest episode of the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series kicked things up a notch. During the Reigning Fire weapons expo at the Le Corail Convention Center in Paris, Jonah Markham reprogrammed the GNR-48313, a.k.a. Gunner, to eliminate specific targets, including Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David. Maximillian Osinski, who plays Boris Peskov, talked with CinemaBlend about the wild way this thrilling robot dog sequence, as well as all the work that went into the setting where it happened.
Ahead of “Fire Sale” premiering on the 2025 TV schedule, I had the pleasure of speaking with Osinski, who you may know from TV shows like Ted Lasso and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., about his work on NCIS: Tony & Ziva. Boris snuck into the weapons expo with Tony, Ziva and Claudette, and Osinski explained how the robot dog was brought to life, telling me:
Those [scenes], one thing… they take a long time, and they’re not never as exciting to film as you when it’s edited together. Like, the robot dog was really cool to see once it was on screen, but I wasn’t there for the filming those scenes, but that was an actor in a green suit doing some really amazing physical work to help with that creating that dog in post.
Gunner was shown off by Reigning Fire CEO Aaron Graves as the latest killing machine developed by the weapons company. Unfortunately for him, Jonah Markham, who holds Graves responsible for the death of his family, got control of the robot dog and started taking out its targets, most of whom were Reigning Fire private security, one by one. Graves was eventually able to disable Gunner by triggering an electromagnetic pulse, but this unfortunately erased the data that our heroes obtained from the drone that was nearby when Jonah killed Henry Rayner-Hunt.
It’s a shame Maximillian Osinski wasn’t able to see this flexible, green-suited actor filling in for the robot dog on set, but I’m glad the final product turned out so well. Later on during the conversation, the actor also told me that the weapons expo scenes weren’t shot at a real convention center. Instead, a lot of time and effort was poured into making this area where all hell broke loose thanks to a rogue machine. Osinski continued:
There’s a good energy ‘cause there’s a lot of extras and that like a big set we built in a studio… that was all real, they literally built a convention center with those physical trucks and drones and everything. So that’s a lot of fun, and that just adds the dynamic and the energy of the scene and the stakes of it. But those scenes… that takes over the course of days shooting people here, inserts here, and sometimes you’re like, wait, we’re in the same place, but I haven’t seen Michael [Weatherly] and Cote [de Pablo] for a day because they’ve been shooting their stuff on the opposite side of the room.
Hopefully we don’t see more Gunners in NCIS: Tony & Ziva’s remaining two episodes, because without an EMP, they’re not easy to take down with conventional firearms. Jonah Markham accomplished what he wanted with the robot dog, though, as he’s used his position as Secretary General of INTERPOL to put Aaron Graves under his “protective” custody, blaming Tony and Ziva for the attack. However, along Tony now tracking Jonah, and with our big bad leaving Martine behind, maybe she’ll finally join forces with the good guys. Let’s just hope she didn’t actually pull the trigger on poor Dejan Lazar.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva will wrap up its debut season on Thursday, October 23, and there’s been no announcement about if Season 2 will happen. On the bright side for fans of this franchise, NCIS, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney will begin airing their new seasons on CBS Tuesday, October 14, but we can keep our fingers crossed that Tony & Ziva will continue at the same time.