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| NCIS Season 16 Image courtesy Amazon.com |
What fresh hell is this?
If you have not watched the episode yet, first off, why are you slacking? Secondly, don't continue on if you don't want spoilers.
The Lead Up
This past week, social media news talked about character Ziva David's status as dead, or is she? My first thought was why are they dredging this dead horse back up? No pun intended, I assure you. Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) has moved on to Paris with Tali, his surprise daughter with Ziva. Weatherly moved on to his new show "Bull". Cote de Pablo, the actress who played Ziva, moved on from the show to pursue other projects, which so far really has not panned out well.
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| Ziva Says Goodbye Image Courtesy Sonja Fleming CBS |
Couldn't Mark Harmon, aka Leroy Jethro Gibbs and executive producer, insist they find some other avenue to create quality television? With the social media feed, I knew what was coming, but unlike many other fans, knew we wouldn't see a cameo by de Pablo. After the episode aired, Weatherly just had to stir the social media pot with a single word Tweet. "Ziva".
Relevant Show History
When an ensemble television show airs as long as NCIS has, 16 seasons, (one of the longest running television spin-offs with NBC's Law & Order SVU worthy of note) there will be cast shakeups. When you are dealing with a crime drama, there will be character deaths. When a show has such a large and devoted following, there will be public outcry.
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| Kate's Death Image Courtesy EW.com |
When Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander) died way back in season two, fans were obviously upset. She and DiNozzo had phenomenal on screen chemistry. Whether that would have turned into something more, we'll never know, but Alexander went on to a successful seven season run starring opposite Angie Harmon in TNT's 'Rizzoli and Isles' five years later. Her death opened the door to Mossad Agent Ziva David, chasing down Kate's killer, who turned out to be her half-brother Ari. Ziva's departure nine years later opened the position to Eleanor Bishop (Emily Wickersham).
That Blasted Rumor Mill
Rumors have flown all over the internet's wiring about why the women of NCIS leave. First Alexander, then Lauren Holly, then de Pablo, then Jennifer Esposito, and finally Pauley Perrette left the CBS show. As for main character men, there's only been Weatherly and the reduction of David McCallum's Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard.
We can cite what the actresses have tweeted, shared in interview, shared with supposed 'close sources' and what was overheard by the paparazzo. We can look back in light of the #metoo movement, and we can pick nuances apart until the cows come home. But at what point is a working actor's life their own? At what point do we sit back and just simply enjoy what their craft has provided us in entertainment value and trust that their own lives are just that, their own? And decidedly none of our damn business.
On to the Show
If we cannot separate reality from the fantasy of the show, we have a problem. So let's leave off all the behind the scenes action for the moment and focus on the episode as it developed the cannon of the NCIS world.
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| Emily Wickersham as NCIS Special Agent Eleanor 'Ellie' Bishop Image Courtesy of Fandom.com |
When NSA analyst Eleanor Bishop, aka Ellie, joined the show in Season 11, we realized that her background was significantly different from the female agents who have occupied her desk in the past. Her predecessor, Ziva was a former Isreali Mossad officer. Ziva's predecessor Kate was a former Secret Service Agent. Even Vivian Blackadder, Tony's partner in the backdoor pilot of NCIS (via its parent show 'JAG') was a former FBI Agent. Although all of them came to NCIS via other agencies, Ellie's former life was not set up as a physically badass woman.
Throughout her time in the Major Case Squad, Ellie has shown she is quite aware of how her presence in Ziva's absence affects the team. She is heartwarming and somewhat innocent at heart; her tenderness towards the rest of the team endear her to them rather than cause them to resent her. I appreciate how this particular episode allows Ellie to voice out loud what we have all noticed from context and superb facial acting the past five years.
Ellie has grown as an agent, becoming a bad ass in her own right, establishing that she's not just a nerd or desk jockey, and proves nerds can be just as kick ass as their more physical contemporaries. Over the years, we watched Kate soften into the demure sister of the group, Ziva soften into a mother figure, and Abigail 'Abby' Sciuto (Perrette) soften into the kid sister.
All this female softening is, on the one hand, presenting a great disservice to womankind, saying that we all devolve into a softer role as we age. On the other, it can be seen as an effort to acknowledge women are quite a bit more complicated than whatever singular role we hold. The reality that CBS/NCIS have not acknowledged this complexity is my one and only frustration with the network in regards to this show.
All About the Ellie
Conversely, Ellie has matured, taken on the tough stances, become more firey and passionate about cases involving women and children, much like Kate, Ziva, and Alexandra Quinn (Esposito). She refuses to shy away from difficulty. She spurns the impulse to tamp emotion down. She is Woman; Hear her Roar!
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| Ellie Confronts Gibbs Image Courtesy TVFanatic |
It is rare to see an agent of lower rank get in Gibbs' face the way Ellie did this past week! She threw Rule 10 in his face and gloated in his own inability to adhere to his own rules. Now I don't know about you, but I don't have Gibbs' Rules memorized. In fact, trying to find a complete list online is like trying to find a genuine Picasso among a room full of fakes. And the show's inability to to keep track of rules and their numbers have caused multiple rules to be assigned to the same number, although there are theories for that as well. At the end of the day, Gibbs took Rule 10 and threw it in the fire.
Wickersham has hit her stride as Ellie Bishop. The team has always acted as a replacement family for Gibbs, his children so to speak. In the wake of Shannon and Kelly's deaths all those years ago, Gibbs isn't the father figure he would have been, but he still tries. Many of Gibbs' rules have been theorized to be as a result of the people in his life or how they exited his life. There have been caveats and addenda and exceptions to the rules. However, with a little help behind the scenes from Ziva, Ellie is the only one who was able to convince Gibbs that a rule was unnecessary.
Fallout
Ziva leaves a note for Ellie in her secret little office. "For the sake of my family, please keep my secret."
So do I really think that de Pablo will return? Absolutely not. When she left, it was because writers were weakening her character. There was less physicality to her character, more emotional responses, and let's not forget the romantic entanglement of Tiva. The questions of "Did they or didn't they?" from S08 E03, 'Under Covers'. The question was ultimately and definitively answered after Ziva's offscreen death in S13 E24 'Family First' with the reveal of Tali, their daughter.
I believe they wrote Ziva's death into the storyline as a means to provide Weatherly the out he wanted and the ability to move on to other projects. He starred in the role for 13 years, starting with the backdoor pilot. Although this long term commitment method has worked out for Harmon, rather lucratively I might add, Weatherly doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who enjoys being a character actor or stuck in the same gig forever. Previous work shows one off episodes, but mostly work based on his role as Tony. The major exceptions to this are of course his current gig as Dr. Jason Bull on the CBS show Bull, and the role in which I first saw him, Logan in "Dark Angel" starring alongside Jessica Alba at the beginning of her career.
Killing Ziva in the process? Really? Why do all the female characters leave violently? Although Duane Henry's poor MI6 liaison Clayton Reeves acted as catalyst for Abby leaving NCIS...
For story line purposes, I do not see the value of bringing the characters back to the screen. Letting us have a bit of hope that someday happiness for Tony and Ziva and Tali off screen... That's the true value of the episode.
~^..^~
So do I really think that de Pablo will return? Absolutely not. When she left, it was because writers were weakening her character. There was less physicality to her character, more emotional responses, and let's not forget the romantic entanglement of Tiva. The questions of "Did they or didn't they?" from S08 E03, 'Under Covers'. The question was ultimately and definitively answered after Ziva's offscreen death in S13 E24 'Family First' with the reveal of Tali, their daughter.
I believe they wrote Ziva's death into the storyline as a means to provide Weatherly the out he wanted and the ability to move on to other projects. He starred in the role for 13 years, starting with the backdoor pilot. Although this long term commitment method has worked out for Harmon, rather lucratively I might add, Weatherly doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who enjoys being a character actor or stuck in the same gig forever. Previous work shows one off episodes, but mostly work based on his role as Tony. The major exceptions to this are of course his current gig as Dr. Jason Bull on the CBS show Bull, and the role in which I first saw him, Logan in "Dark Angel" starring alongside Jessica Alba at the beginning of her career.
Killing Ziva in the process? Really? Why do all the female characters leave violently? Although Duane Henry's poor MI6 liaison Clayton Reeves acted as catalyst for Abby leaving NCIS...
For story line purposes, I do not see the value of bringing the characters back to the screen. Letting us have a bit of hope that someday happiness for Tony and Ziva and Tali off screen... That's the true value of the episode.
~^..^~
