‘NCIS’ season 12, episode 6 review: Tony reflects on Ziva in Halloween episode
Tuesday night’s “NCIS” was a complicated one by every stretch of the imagination, and there was probably too much going on in between the children, cannibal chatter, Halloween parties, and the idea of setting Tony up on a date.
We have to say, a little part of this Tony story was awkward, and not because of the idea of him having a new relationship. Instead, did anyone feel like the whole conversation about Ziva moving on was starting to get a little bit preachy? It felt almost like the show wanted our permission for the character to move on, where he should just be doing that organically if he did want to move forward with his life.
Tony did start to find someone in an ATF agent in Zoe Keates, who he has a history with dating back to Philadelphia. We have no idea if she will be sticking around at all, but there is a little chemistry there … though not as much as we’ve seen with other people.
As for the rest of the episode, the creepy case Gibbs dealt with was entertaining enough, but the biggest letdown to us was that we never actually saw Abby’s Halloween party! We feel totally cheated that the only costumes that we had were Bishop as Sandy from “Grease” and Tony as “James Bond.” No sighting of McGee as Robin makes us incredibly bummed out. “NCIS” needs to give us a little fun sometimes! Grade: C+.
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liz laughlin
October 29, 2014 @ 5:28 am
TPTB sent us the message loud and clear, “Get over Ziva!” It’s interesting that Abby is the bearer of the message. Do we know whether Gibbs or Tony ever told her why Ziva left? Because this is the first time we’ve heard Ziva’s name mentioned, we have no idea who knows what. I thought that Abby came across angry and strident, “She left us!” This sounds like Abby thinks she is the injured party. Ziva’s last words to Tony indicated that she thought that Abby would understand her choice but evidently Ziva thought more highly of Abby than Abby thinks of Ziva. Tony knows what happened and why Ziva left and he doesn’t seem to be angry about it. He was certainly hurt more by Ziva’s departure than anyone else on the team and yet his tone is still soft and affectionate. TPTB must not be very bright if they think that they can order the fans to “just get over it.” It seems a bit pretentious on their part.
marysue
October 29, 2014 @ 3:22 pm
If they had had conversations between the characters last season about Ziva leaving and how they felt about it versus not mentioning her at all it would have given fans a better impression of where they all stood and felt about it. Also as I mentioned previously a final episode between Ziva and the others saying goodbye would have given better closure and that storyline could have been left alone. In CSI when Marg Hellenberg left the series, they wrote her out by her taking a new job. They all got to say good-bye. They could have done that with Ziva too. Maybe she could have joined her friend (from the ep “The Missionary Position”) in Columbia for a while and then moved on. They could have given TIVA fans their moment with Tony being the one to take her to the airport or whatever. The writers could have had some “organic” lines for the characters and the contact with Ziva could have gradually lessened as the season went on.
The only way to end this NOW is for all of them to finally open up in conversation about how they all feel about it. They need to get rid of “the elephant in the room”. At this point Tony could reveal what happened in Israel and Ziva’s reasons for her decision – this is what should have happened last season versus Gibbs just saying “She wanted to move on, so let’s move on.” It could be left there and if Ziva does return, the conversation could be picked up again. As I’ve said before, GG should have had a couple of Ziva-less eps in his back pocket when Cote’s contract negotiations were dragging on. If he had a couple of storylines as Plan B they wouldn’t have been in such a panic when Cote walked. The other difficulty is that in real life the cast had a big shock when Cote decided to leave. Even though we don’t know how it all went down and regardless of her reasons for leaving, you can bet there were some feelings of hurt among her co-stars. The only one who appears to be supportive and has been vocal about it is Michael. I can’t even begin to imagine what that felt like for them. If Cote doesn’t want to return even for a final Ziva arc they should find a way to deal with this via conversation between the characters and there could be final words from Ziva via texts etc. without Cote even having to appear. This would give better closure and the feeling of moving on. I hope that GG et al find a way to deal with this and soon because it could be the show’s final undoing. Fans are getting madder and madder. Given the mess that seems to be growing I wouldn’t blame Cote if she doesn’t want to come back.
Beverly
October 29, 2014 @ 4:19 pm
Great comment!
sadtonyfan
October 30, 2014 @ 12:22 am
I don’t think Abby was angry because she herself felt injured at Ziva’s decision to quit the team. I took it as her trying to be a good friend with Tony and encourage him to get on with his life, which I for one really wish the writers would allow him to do. I never saw the big “romance” between Tony and Ziva, since she treated him as if he was so very far beneath her, and feel that this kind of writing is tptb’s efforts to appease fans who after over a year, are still clinging to “tiva”. IMO Ziva treated Tony with contempt 95% of the time and the writers threw Tony under the bus again and again and again in order to highlight Ziva’s multitude of mary sue attributes. I sincerely hope that this completely unnecessary Tony/Abby scene was the final nail on Ziva/tiva and that the show will FINALLY give more than insincere lip service to letting Tony evolve.
Beverly
October 29, 2014 @ 3:01 am
Overall it was a pretty decent episode. Agree that they want fans to
“get over” Ziva leaving which just proves that someone does not
understand why fans are upset in the first place. Fans will stop
watching the show before they forget Ziva. They have done a very poor
job of handling her exit from going a whole season without mentioning
her name to making the first mention of her name having Abby tell Tony
to forget her and move on. They have had a lot of previous experience
in this area and been successful so you’d think they would know how to
handle it. Definitely don’t enjoy it as much as I used to. (Yes I know I
need to stop watching) The humor, family camaraderie and team feel is
sporadic and often missing. The whole Tony dating thing, I am not
necessarily opposed to as long as they don’t push it on us, I was not
the least amused at Bishop’s efforts to be funny. For a major show such
as this they usually don’t give you this long to try to fit with the
show. You don’t fit then you are gone. It must of been in Emily’s
contract that under no circumstances would they fire her. What other
excuse could there be as the Bishop character is really terrible and has
been controversial for a year? Some fans just don’t like her whether
Ziva comes back or not. The character’s acting ranges from gritting
my teeth to I think I’ll run to the kitchen to fix a snack while she is
on. I hope one day we find out the truth because it is not that she
adds to the show. Still looking for something good at 8 pm on Tuesday.
Matthew
October 29, 2014 @ 1:48 am
Its the first time that this show has ‘asked’ permission. Actually NCIS has been one of the better shows in regards to past characters. We have callbacks to Jenny, Ziva and even Kate every so often .