Throughout its lengthy existence, NCIS has experienced high cast turnover, which occasionally leaves viewers questioning whether the program could continue to function without some of its most important performers.
The departure of Cote de Pablo’s Ziva from NCIS was arguably the most unexpected change to the cast.
Longtime viewers found Ziva’s departure all the more tragic because she was a major part of the franchise from the very beginning.
When CBS revealed Ziva would be departing the wildly popular NCIS, it was a huge shock to fans of the long-running crime series.
Although de Pablo’s statements and the production’s lack of confirmation have given rise to various rumors, the reasons behind the character’s writing were never entirely established.
Fans will learn more about Ziva’s friendship with Tony DiNozzo in a future NCIS spinoff.
On November 18, 2024, Alex Roush provided an update: Officially making a comeback in their own NCIS spinoff series, Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo will bring the beloved characters back to viewers years after they left the original series.
Many NCIS watchers are still curious about Ziva’s reasons for leaving the show and what has happened to her character over the years. In addition to improving the reading experience and following CBR formatting requirements, this page has been updated to provide more details regarding the NCIS spinoff.
Who Was Special Agent Ziva David on NCIS?
Ziva In the Season 3 opener, David made his debut appearance on NCIS as an Israeli Mossad agent.
She debuted on NCIS during a turbulent period, just after Rudolf Martin’s Ari Haswari had unexpectedly killed Sasha Alexander’s Caitlin Todd in the Season 2 finale.
Since Ziva turned out to be Ari’s half-sister, things were a little awkward. However, Ziva quickly showed her commitment to the cause by shooting Ari in order to save Gibbs.
Ziva then worked as a liaison between her father, the Mossad director, and Jenny Shepard, the director of NCIS.
She spent three seasons and four years in that position. After that, she went back to Mossad, but before Gibbs, Tony, and McGee could save her, she was caught in Somalia while on assignment.
She left Mossad after this terrible event, became a US citizen, and was placed on probation as an NCIS agent.
In Season 11, Ziva’s tenure at NCIS eventually came to an end. To save Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs from a perilous political grudge, she, Tony, and McGee leave NCIS. But unlike McGee and Tony, Ziva decided not to return to the agency after the problem was fixed. Rather, she went back to Israel, where she was allegedly slain off-screen in Season 13 when her father’s farmhouse was attacked.
Later on, viewers found out that Tali was Ziva and Tony’s daughter. Tony also decided to leave NCIS after learning the news.
Why Did Ziva Leave NCIS?
In a 2013 interview with TV Guide, Cote de Pablo indicated that she left NCIS because of a personal issue: “As far as my decision to leave, that’s a personal thing, and I’d rather leave it at that.” However, in a 2016 Q&A about her departure, she told a different story, which involved how her character would be treated in the future.
She noted, “They were going to send [Ziva] back to Israel and assemble her an unfortunate, miserable woman. I said, ‘What do I leave all the women that are watching and following the show?’ And I didn’t think it was fair. So, I said, ‘Unless someone can really write something fantastic for [Ziva], I won’t go back.’”
| Episode | Release Date | IMDb Rating |
| Season 13, Episode 24, “Family First” | May 17, 2016 | 9.2/10 |
| Season 7, Episode 1, “Truth or Consequences” | September 22, 2009 | 9.1/10 |
| Season 5, Episode 7, “Requiem” | November 6, 2007 | 8.9/10 |
The reason Cote de Pablo quit NCIS after Season 11 remains a mystery to fans despite all of that.
Her abrupt decision to leave, however, greatly disappointed certain cast members, especially David McCallum. In any case, Ziva’s dismissal and years of clamor for a cameo appearance infuriated fans.
Nevertheless, Ziva was totally missing from all of the NCIS shows for a long time, shattering any dreams of a comeback until Season 17.
When Does Ziva David Return To NCIS?
Despite NCIS’s long-standing assertion that Ziva was dead, a startling revelation in Season 16 showed that the character had really staged her own demise and was still active in the background.
Finally, six years after leaving and seemingly dying off-screen, Ziva David, played by Cote de Pablo, made a reappearance in the Season 17 premiere “Out of the Darkness.”
Ziva joined forces with her former NCIS coworkers, including as agents Gibbs and McGee, in a four-episode plot that was interspersed throughout the season to try and track down the people who had tried to assassinate her right before she went underground.
To destroy the adversary pursuing her, Ziva must once more embrace her past as a vicious assassin.
She must first win back the trust of her former coworkers, who are cautious about putting their faith in her since she lied about her destiny for so long, even though they are happy to find that their old buddy is still alive.
She eventually succeeds in persuading them to assist her in locating the enigmatic “Phineas,” who appears to be interested in her death.
Ziva makes her last appearance in Season 17’s eleventh episode, “In the Wind.”
She makes a final stand against Phineas there with Gibbs and the NCIS team. But it turns out that Sarah Johnson, Phineas’s mother and an apparently innocent civilian who was actually terrorist Mira Sahar Azam, was the real mastermind behind the plot to kill Ziva.
Ziva kills Mira before she completes her objective with the assistance of her former colleagues, allowing the former NCIS agent to live in peace once more.
Though this sweet event takes place off-screen, Ziva uses the occasion to get back together with Anthony DiNozzo and their daughter, Tali.
The Timeline for Tony & Ziva Is Finally Confirmed
Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly will formally return to the NCIS franchise in a spinoff series that stars Ziva David and Anthony DiNozzo.
There are currently few details available about the impending Tony & Ziva series. Even still, years after they left the first NCIS series, viewers are eager to see their favorite crimefighting couple again.
The two characters haven’t seen together on screen for more than a decade, despite the fact that Ziva and DiNozzo are known to have reconnected upon her comeback in Season 17 of NCIS.
Tali, the daughter of DiNozzo and Ziva, is currently being raised in Paris.
The upcoming series will resume where they left off ten years ago, with the couple on the run after an attack on Tony’s security firm. It will combine action elements with family issues, which will set the spinoff apart in the growing NCIS franchise.
Additionally, if the NCIS world digs deeper into the past for other characters, such as Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the series might delve deeper into the backstories of Tony and Ziva.
Isla Gie, who will play Tali, the daughter of Tony and Ziva, is one of the cast members who has already been announced for Tony & Ziva.
Isla previously starred in the Apple TV+ series Foundation. The series will also include Maximilian Osinski, who most recently played Zava in Ted Lasso, as the gifted computer hacker Boris.
Reuniting Tony and Ziva with other beloved characters who have left the original NCIS series over the years is another possibility for the series.
Fans would be thrilled to see Gibbs make a cameo again, particularly if it meant he could see two of his best agents again.
The planned spinoff would be a nice addition to Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto, who has also been noticeably missing since leaving NCIS in Season 15.
Other supporting cast members, such as Emily Wickersham’s Eleanor Bishop or Jennifer Esposito’s Alex Quinn, might potentially make a comeback.
Tony & Ziva establishes a precedent that may lead to NCIS bringing back characters for their own spinoffs when they leave the main series, even if none of these characters feature in the forthcoming series.
