Firstly of NCIS Season 11, Cote de Pablo departed after eight seasons as a predominant solid member. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the final we noticed of her character, Ziva David, who grew to become a beloved addition to the favored CBS procedural when she was introduced in to interchange the murdered Caitlin Todd. De Pablo made a shock look within the closing moments of the Season 16 finale, then appeared in a number of Season 17 episodes. Nice steps had been taken to make sure that the actress’ return was stored a tightly-guarded secret, which government producer Mark Horowitz described as “invoking Battle Membership guidelines.”
Horowitz stopped by Off Obligation: An NCIS Rewatch to speak with de Pablo and Tony DiNozzo actor Michael Weatherly, each of whom shall be paired again collectively within the upcoming spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva. When the dialog turned to all the things that went into planning de Pablo’s Season 16 cameo, the producer began off by saying:
If you got here again to your particular episode… and we had been all ready for you. We had been excellent at maintaining secrets and techniques. These surprises that occurred in entrance of the viewers had been a shock to many, many individuals who labored on the present that had been that weren’t informed about what we had been going to do. There was an entire factor we did the place that scene was by no means revealed. It solely existed on one piece of paper, and we’d actually present it to the dozen those who needed to be concerned, and that was it. It was by no means, by no means launched to brokers or anybody. The dailies had been all stored separate. The whole lot was separate. This occurred when Kate was shot on the rooftop, that is the place it began. And we got here up with what I referred to as Battle Membership Guidelines. ‘We’re invoking Battle Membership guidelines, we’re simply not going to speak about it. And I imply you are not going to speak to your spouse, your husband, your children, your pals on the bar, no person.’ And we had been capable of pull this off.
Following Cote de Pablo’s exit as a collection common, it was thought that Ziva had died offscreen in the direction of the tip of Season 13, although Tony didn’t consider this. After resigning from NCIS, he went to Israel to search for solutions with their daughter Tali, who he’d solely simply realized about, after which Paris to honor Ziva’s love for the French metropolis. Then in Season 16, Ellie Bishop realized that Ziva was nonetheless alive, and on the finish of that season’s finale, de Pablo’s character confirmed up in Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ basement to warn him he was at risk.
You’ll be able to see how the remainder of this story unfolded by watching NCIS Season 17 together with your Paramount+ subscription, however I like how Mark Horowitz and the present’s group channeled the primary rule from the Battle Membership novel and movie adaptation, “Don’t speak about Battle Membership,” to be able to make sure the secrecy of Ziva’s return. Horowitz additionally described what it was like on the night time that Cote de Pablo arrived to shoot her cameo. As he defined:
Your return was a kind of, the place we despatched the entire crew off aside from a really small group of individuals. You bought caught up in site visitors or one thing. There was some type of accident or one thing. So we had been ready, it was late, it was the final night time of the final day of the season. I forbid anybody to take any footage, however I used to be there at my digital camera, and there is this second the place out of the blue a hush came to visit the stage, and echoing from the space are footsteps, very distinct boots coming nearer and nearer, nearer. And everybody turned and appeared and waited. After which from round this nook turns into Cote de Pablo. It was an exquisite, fantastic second.
Once we left off with Ziva in Season 17, she was going to reunite with Tony and Tali in Paris, marking the primary time the three would lastly be collectively. Ziva hasn’t been seen on NCIS since then, although Tony did make his personal shock return earlier this yr for the tribute episode honoring David McCallum and his character, Donald “Ducky” Mallard. We’ll lastly get to see Ziva and Tony reunited on display of their aforementioned spinoff, which shall be a Paramount+ unique and comply with them happening the run throughout Europe after Tony’s safety firm is attacked.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva doesn’t have a launch date set but, however depend on it premiering someday on the 2025 TV schedule. New episodes of NCIS air Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS, adopted by the prequel collection NCIS: Origins.