Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
NCIS has been bringing in new agents for quite some time, yet it still hasn’t filled the gap left by a certain character. Cote de Pablo‘s contribution as Ziva David dates back to 2013, but her departure has affected the characters around her. Even now, with Michael Weatherly back as Tony DiNozzo in Season 24, the series is finding reasons to bring her up, which is a pretty remarkable achievement for a character who hasn’t been a regular cast member in more than a decade.
Ziva has had an unusual introduction to team NCIS. She arrived in the Season 3 premiere, “Kill Ari (Part 1),” after Kate Todd’s (Sasha Alexander) death, and she happened to be the half-sister of the man responsible. Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin) had murdered Kate, and Ziva was the one who ultimately shot him to save Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Understandably, nobody was thrilled to have her around at first. She had to convince an office full of suspicious colleagues that she belonged there, and the show gave her plenty of room to do exactly that.
Plenty of memorable agents have come after Ziva, and they don’t need to be carbon copies of her to be worthwhile, but her departure left a specific gap for a reason. Her story connected the procedural’s action to its family drama, while her relationships with Gibbs and Tony gave the series two very different emotional threads to follow.
Ziva David Was More Than the Team’s Most Dangerous Agent
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When Ziva joined NCIS, she had already experienced more than most of her fellow employees could imagine. Her father, Eli David (Michael Nouri), headed the Mossad, and she grew up where discipline and responsibility took priority over everything else. Ziva served in the Israeli army before being recruited into the Mossad, lost her youngest sister, Tali, to an explosion, and learned how to survive in a world that demanded she be cruel.
From the start, Ziva clearly had the skills to succeed. She spoke several languages, was skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and performed well even in the most difficult situations, but what made her interesting was that she spent so many years learning to accept violence as a solution to everything that she had to learn how to live without it.
The change became especially important after her capture and torture in Somalia. Gibbs, Tony, and McGee (Sean Murray) helped bring her home in the Season 7 premiere, “Truth or Consequences,” but getting her back was only part of the story. Ziva eventually resigned from Mossad and pursued a position at NCIS, choosing to build a life with people who had become her family.
She also had a personality that was entirely her own. Her difficulty with American idioms became a recurring source of comedy, particularly when Tony was around to make things worse. Ziva could be intimidating one minute and completely baffled by an expression the next. De Pablo understood that the humor made her feel like someone you actually wanted to spend time with.
Gibbs Became the Father Ziva Needed
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The relationship between Gibbs and Ziva is one of the best examples of how much her character changed after joining NCIS. Their introduction wasn’t exactly warm; Gibbs had every reason to question her loyalties, and Ziva wasn’t particularly accustomed to explaining herself to anyone. Still, the circumstances surrounding Ari’s death gave them a connection that neither could easily dismiss.
One of their earliest defining moments comes in “Kill Ari (Part 2).” After Ziva saves Gibbs by killing her own brother, she visits him in the hospital. When he struggles to remember what happened, she takes his hand and slaps herself with it, prompting him to remember that she saved his life. The moment ends with Ziva breaking down in his arms. It’s a rare glimpse of how much the experience has affected her, especially since she’s spent so much time trying to appear unaffected.
Their relationship continues to deepen in Season 7’s “Good Cop, Bad Cop.” After Ziva is cleared in an investigation involving the deaths aboard the Damocles, Gibbs kisses her on the forehead. It is a small gesture, but it matters to anyone with issues around her father. Eventually, Gibbs becomes the person Ziva is comfortable enough to show her vulnerability around, which is something she lacked growing up – unconditional acceptance and belonging.
This will make Season 17 especially significant. Ziva is understandably hurt that Gibbs never searched for her after she was presumed dead, and the two have to confront what that absence meant to them. They have to work through the resentment, which makes their eventual reconciliation feel earned.
Tony and Ziva Gave ‘NCIS’ a Relationship Worth Waiting For
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When it came to their relationship, Tony and Ziva had chemistry from the moment they began working together, although neither was particularly eager to admit it. Their early dynamic was full of teasing and competitive banter, but Season 3’s “Under Covers” gave viewers a memorable glimpse of what lay beneath. The pair go undercover as a couple, complete with a romantic rendezvous, and the episode helped establish the attraction that would become one of the show’s longest-running storylines.
What made Tony and Ziva work wasn’t constant flirting. They were colleagues who understood each other’s instincts, challenged one another, and developed a loyalty that extended well beyond the job. Their relationship took years to evolve, and even when they weren’t saying what they felt, the audience could usually tell.
Their eventual daughter, Tali, brought that story into a new chapter. After Ziva was presumed dead following an attack on her farmhouse, Tony left NCIS to raise their daughter. Ziva’s return in Season 17 revealed she was alive, allowing the series to revisit a relationship left unresolved for years. The pair eventually reunited in Paris, and their story continued in the Paramount+ spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
‘NCIS’ Still Has to Make Room for Ziva
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The spinoff’s cancellation after one season left Tony and Ziva’s story in an uncertain place, but the flagship series hasn’t exactly forgotten about them. Tony’s return in Season 24 has brought Ziva back into the conversation, even though she isn’t appearing on screen. Tony tells McGee and Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) that she’s in the Boston area, working at a language institute while keeping an eye on Tali, who has started boarding school nearby. He even suggests she could be available if the team needs her.
Showrunner Steven D. Binder has said Ziva won’t appear in Season 24, so that update isn’t confirmation of an imminent reunion. Still, it’s telling that the show takes the time to establish where she is and what she’s doing. Her life remains relevant to Tony’s, and Tony’s life remains relevant to the show.
Bishop (Emily Wickersham), Knight (Katrina Law), and the agents who followed Ziva have brought their own strengths to NCIS. The series doesn’t need another Mossad operative to make the team interesting, and trying to recreate Ziva would probably be a mistake. What it hasn’t found is another character whose personal history could influence so many corners of the show at once. Ziva’s story was about more than becoming a better agent. It was about a woman trained to serve other people’s expectations finally deciding what she wanted for herself. She found a family in the people who once questioned whether she belonged, and built a future that looked nothing like the one her father had planned. NCIS can fill another desk, but it can’t manufacture that history overnight, and judging by how often the show still brings Ziva into the conversation, it hasn’t stopped trying to find a way to bring her back.
Follows the Major Case Response Team (MCRT) from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), as they get to the bottom of criminal cases connected to Navy and Marine Corps personnel.
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