Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo know NCIS fans want to see Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David together — but they insist there’s a reason for their split on NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
Warning: Spoilers below from season 1, episode 1 of NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
During the season 1 premiere, which aired on Thursday, September 4, fans learned that sometime between Tony (Weatherly) and Ziva’s (de Pablo) January 2020 reunion and fall 2025, they broke up, but they are still coparenting their daughter, Tali (Isla Gie).
According to Weatherly, “That is what the whole show is about,” Tony and Ziva’s missing years and how they ended up apart.
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Tony raised their daughter from 2016 to 2020 — after his exit from NCIS’ Washington, D.C., headquarters — while under the impression that Ziva was dead following a bomb in Israel that destroyed her family home. Ziva confirmed her survival during season 17 of NCIS but wasn’t reunited in person in France with her partner and child until January 2020, per the spinoff.
“We know an expectation is set, so we jump past it and put them in a tuxedo and a wedding dress, and then take it away,” Weatherly, 57, exclusively told Us Weekly on Wednesday, September 3, referring to Tony and Ziva being dressed like they are getting married to start the series as part of a special op that unfolds in October 2025.
While fans slowly peel back the layers of the case — Tony was accused of stealing money from Interpol and framed for a series of events brought forth by a program called 9.4, which Ziva must help him disprove — they also get glimpses at the pair’s life as a couple after the events of NCIS.
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“The show itself is a kind of unreliable narrator,” Weatherly teased. “That is why you sort of think they’re together for a second, but then they’re not, but then they might be. Then you’re like, ‘Wait, which timeline am I in?’”
He explained that as the episodes “move around and you go through this kind of kaleidoscopic hall of funhouse mirrors,” the dynamic between Tony and Ziva (in the past and the present) gets “teased out to make more sense.”
De Pablo, 45, exclusively told Us on Wednesday that “people will enjoy the journey of how they get back together,” hinting that Tony and Ziva are still endgame.
“They need to have a payoff,” she said, noting that’s where the flashbacks come in, “to understand what happened and how they did get back [in sync].”
The actress added that it’s a “very enjoyable thing” to see the hidden moments from 2020 to 2025 play out during season 1.
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De Pablo pointed out that although Tony and Ziva “worked on so many levels” on the OG series, on the spinoff the “theme of trust” becomes a key point of contention. “It becomes, kind of an impossible thing to go forward without that,” she teased.
While de Pablo played coy about how exactly Tony and Ziva’s story will end, she said as a team they “wanted to give the story the backdrop” of a “romantic European” love, which adds to the sexual tension between the characters.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva airs on Paramount+ Thursdays.