‘NCIS’ season 11 spoilers: Cote de Pablo’s Ziva will not die

Before we watch the end of Cote de Pablo’s time on “NCIS” in a matter of weeks, we do have some happy news to share with now: The producers are not particularly keen on giving the Ziva character a horrific end a la Dan Stevens on “Downton Abbey.” Ziva will live, and of course potentially start up speculation about whether or not she could appear again on the show down the road.

This long-suspected news (at least based on the information we’ve received) comes via TVLine’s Michael Ausiello, who spoke with executive producer Gary Glasberg. He went on to explain that there are reasons related to the show’s past as to why Ziva will live, and that there are some specific plans in the works to give her a send-off that will hopefully leave fans very satisfied:

“It’s not what this character deserves. Also, [we killed off] Sasha Alexander’s Kate character [back in Season 2] and I like the idea of doing this one a little different and respecting who [Ziva] is … In the second episode we learn why she’s going to make the decision she’s going to make… We put a lot into that storyline, so I hope it works for people.”

As for the possibility of Cote returning, it is probably foolish to sit here and think that she will just pop up later this year for three or four episodes. The most likely scenario to us is that if she is brought back, it will be either for a major milestone episode, or the series finale as a way to tribute someone who was once a huge part of the show. Let’s just hope that CBS will allow them to have a series finale when the time comes, and not just throw them out to pasture without warning as they did with “CSI: Miami.”

There’s been a lot of buzz about Ziva’s exit on “NCIS” the past few seasons, and if you do want to read about more of it, don’t worry: We have all of that information and then some for you here!

Photo: CBS