NCIS season 21 spoilers: Will Michael Weatherly return again?
After the surprise return of Michael Weatherly as Tony on last night’s NCIS tribute to David McCallum, it makes sense to want something more. Anytime that an original cast member comes back, it is certainly a big deal — and with Tony in particular, you can argue that there is some unfinished business.
After all, remember this for a moment: While Ziva and Tony have reunited off-screen, we have yet to actually see any of this on-camera. Cote de Pablo returned for an arc a few seasons back but in the end, departed without DiNozzo making an appearance. There is a lot of nostalgia roped into these characters, especially since it has been so many years since they were together. We know that there are even those out there pushing for a Ziva / Tony spin-off, which makes some sense given that there are so many other off-shoots for the franchise at this point.
Now that we’ve said all of this, it doesn’t look like the return of Tony is meant to be something that leads into some larger story at the moment. Speaking to USA Today, Michael’s one-time co-star in Brian Dietzen (who wrote the Ducky tribute) confirmed that:
“(Michael) was eager to help out with what was essentially an in-person flashback … It was a shoutout to the previous iterations of this ‘NCIS’ team as Michael too was an original cast member. But there are no plans for a return.”
Can plans change? Of course, but the big thing to remember this season in particular is that we are dealing with a dramatically shorter amount of episodes. Because of this, our feeling is that the focus here on out is probably going to be most around the current team. If there is a returning cast member, we tend to think it’s more likely to be Mark Harmon near the finale as a way to publicize further the Gibbs prequel that is currently in the works.
Related – Why didn’t Mark Harmon return for the Ducky tribute?
Do you think we will ever see Michael Weatherly back as Tony again on NCIS?
Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do just that, keep coming back — there are some other updates on the way.
This article was written by Jessica BunBun.