NCIS season 17 premiere: Top-secret guest star revealed!

NCIS

Let’s just say that the road to NCIS season 17 premiere just got THAT much more interesting — and yea, there are HUGE spoilers within.

At the end of tonight’s finale, it was OFFICIALLY confirmed that Cote de Pablo is going to be back on the long-running crime procedural as Ziva David, setting up a storyline that first surfaced in the season 16 episode “She” when it was revealed that she was still alive. This was a huge moment, one that almost certainly will have people shocked, excited, and so much more. After years of waiting, she is coming back for more and we are here for it.

We can tell you that Cote will be back in the season 17 premiere as a guest star, working potentially alongside Gibbs — which suggests that whatever she warned him about is of the utmost significance. Her future beyond that is unclear (we are hoping for a part time gig where Ziva takes over Reeves desk but that’s an article for another time), but isn’t this exciting to know in itself?

In a statement, here is what showrunners Frank Cardea and Steven D. Binder had to say on the subject:

“This surprise moment is just the beginning … We are thrilled to share that Cote de Pablo will guest star in the NCIS Season 17 premiere this Fall as Ziva’s warning to Gibbs unfolds.”

For more NCIS video reaction, check out the latest below! Meanwhile, remember to subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube for more and check out our official NCIS playlist for some other insight.

Here are a few other interesting tidbits to know about how tonight’s closing scene was filmed — it was never included on any script or call sheet for “Daughters,” and only Cardea and Binder had copies of the scene pages. It was also filmed with a skeleton crew at midnight, and Cote arrived to film via a back-gate entrance. So basically, NCIS wanted to keep this as big of a secret as humanly possible. They succeeded. While we thought that Cote could appear in the finale, we never got any indication for a second that she actually filmed something. Kudos to the whole team on this, since we can’t imagine that it was easy. (Also, kudos to them for resisting temptation to announce it in advance — they avoided the ratings cash-grab in favor of an awesome story surprise.)

Of course, we have so many more questions and things to think about, but those are subjects that we’ll dive into and address more over the course of the coming weeks. It’s going to be a fun summer, one full of speculation and story hopes.

For some more news when it comes to NCIS…

Be sure to head over to the link here to read a full review for tonight’s finale!

What do you think about Ziva returning for the NCIS season 17 premiere? Be sure to share in the attached comments. We’re going to have SO much more reaction soon. (Photo: CBS.)

This article was written by Jessica Carter and you can follow her on Twitter here.

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