Season 6 of NCIS left off with Tony DiNozzo prevailing in a fight to the death with Ziva’s lover, Mossad assassin Michael Rivkin. DiNozzo got called to Tel Aviv to answer to Ziva’s father, and more importantly, to Ziva herself. Deciding she could no longer trust Tony, Ziva transferred back to Mossad, and her first assignment ended with her being beaten and interrogated by a terrorist leader in Somalia. Season 7 opens with the same terrorist leader in the same tight quarters, but instead of Ziva, it’s DiNozzo being interrogated.
The jump-cutting Season 7 premiere gave us glimpses of the team’s four months without Ziva, the interview process for her replacement, and finally, cleverly pieced together how Tony ended up where he did. I’m usually not a fan of time jumps, but I thought they worked to their best effect in this episode. Each time jump gave us key information with which to reinterpret the main scene of DiNozzo being interrogated.
With Tony briefly describing each member of the team, including Ducky and Abby, this episode could serve well to introduce new viewers to NCIS. When Tony mentioned that Ziva was dead, my first thought was he was feeding the terrorist a line of BS, but since Tony had been drugged, I couldn’t rule out that he might be telling the truth—not that Cote de Pablo’s character had been killed off, but that the team believed she was dead.
Similarly, midway through Tony’s interrogation, McGee’s body is kicked into the room, and only at the most dramatic moment do we find out he’s playing dead, biding his time to help Tony escape. Finally, another agent is brought in wearing a head bag. The terrorist leader removes the bag to reveal Ziva, and no words need to be said.
I enjoyed the scenes of Tony and McGee interviewing attractive women to fill Ziva’s spot, each of them washing out for one reason or another, Gibbs reducing one of them to tears. There was also a very funny time-lapse scene showing how Tony perceives other members of the team day in and day out. Of course, every loyal fan of NCIS wanted Gibbs, Tony, and McGee to quit playing around and rescue Ziva. And in the final take on Tony’s interrogation, we see where Gibbs has been all this time, hidden in the desert behind a sniper scope, ready to take out the terrorist leader on cue from Tony.
My enthusiasm for this episode built slowly, probably at just the pace the writers wanted, until I thought it was—as I summed up on Twitter—”all kinds of awesome on a stick.” The trust needs to be rebuilt between Ziva and Tony, Ziva and Gibbs, but that can wait till next week. Welcome back, NCIS.
I enjoyed every minute of this episode! It had the right amount of humor, making me laugh a few times. The ending brought tears to my eyes. I love everything about this show – the writing, the characters, the actors themselves. Fantastic.
NCIS, smart show that focuses on the relationships of the characters rather than losing us in the mindless stories as CSI and other shows do…I mean we get it..your the best and no bad guy can get away..NCIS though speak to our humanity and everyday interpersonal relationship we ourselves have going to work etc…Adding great actors and smart writing…the show has a winning formula…As time passes the show keeps adding layers of variation and simple beauty…I never cry but the episode they were all saying their goodbye’s to Kate brought a tear or two out…the scene were Mcgee and DiNozzo were saying their goodbye was the best scene…
Some genius captured Lightning in a bottle..keep the good work up..!
The most pleasing moment for me was when it was all over and i thought about it. This episode pays so much respect to the real NCIS than any other episode in my opinion. That they’d be willing to go through all that to save one of their own.
did you see the look on Ziva’s face when Tony explained everything in the interogation room. it was like she couldn’t belief they’d done all this just for her. I don’t think back when she was in Mossad someone would have done that. they didn’t do anything until NCIS stepped in to help before they came aboard.
Great respect to marines everywhere. Gibbs must have been a really good snipper because after all these years he could still shoot and kill from that distance. I was like WOW.
Great show keeps getting better and better. And it truly is addicting!