Tony DiNozzo isn’t walking back into NCIS like the last 10 years never happened.
“I just know that it’s going to be an exciting return,” Michael Weatherly told fans this past weekend at a UK fan convention, appearing alongside his longtime co-star Cote de Pablo. The actor is set to reprise his role as Tony for a season-long arc when NCIS returns for Season 24 this fall, and he’s already dropping hints about what that comeback will look like.
“I have really enjoyed watching what the show has done over the last 10 years since I left, but it’s a different show now,” Weatherly said, via TVLine. “So I’m very much about respecting the show I’m coming into and being aware that they’ve built an extraordinarily successful tenure…but that doesn’t mean that what we did isn’t going to be able to live alongside and inside that show.”
That “what we did” is a reference to NCIS: TONY & ZIVA, the Paramount+ spinoff that reunited Weatherly and de Pablo last year as Tony and Ziva David, co-parenting their daughter Tali in Paris while dodging international intrigue. Weatherly confirmed the spinoff’s events won’t be swept under the rug when he returns to the flagship show.
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“There is a definite connection between [TONY & ZIVA] and the canon that that created,” Weatherly said. “There’s not going to be retconning of, like, oh, ‘Tony & Ziva’ never happened.” De Pablo couldn’t resist a needle: “So it’s not going to be a dream sequence?”
It’s a fair question for longtime fans. NCIS: TONY & ZIVA was canceled after just one season, and Movieguide® readers may remember our own coverage back in December, when the cast’s future felt genuinely uncertain. Movieguide®’s review of the spinoff praised its action and humor but flagged several unnecessary profanities, advising families to use discernment. Weatherly’s comments now suggest that story wasn’t a dead end after all — just a chapter waiting to be folded back into the larger one.
Tony DiNozzo has always been a character defined by leaving and returning. Weatherly was an original cast member when “NCIS” debuted on CBS back in 2003, playing the brash, wisecracking field agent for 13 seasons before writing Tony off the show to raise his daughter alone, believing Ziva had died. He came back briefly in Season 21 for the funeral of Donald “Ducky” Mallard, the beloved medical examiner played by the late David McCallum, and now he’s coming back again — this time, it seems, for good.
There’s something quietly true to life in that pattern. Tony’s story has always circled around family: losing it, chasing it, rebuilding it in unexpected places. For a show that’s outlasted two decades of cast turnover, bringing him home while honoring what he’s already lived through says something about loyalty that Christian viewers who value faithfulness and legacy will likely appreciate, even in a procedural that doesn’t wear its convictions on its sleeve.
CBS confirmed Weatherly’s return earlier this month, with NCIS Season 24 set to air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. this fall. Exactly how Tony’s arc will unfold, and how much of Paris comes with him, remains to be seen. But if Weatherly’s hints are any indication, fans won’t need to pretend the last chapter didn’t happen to enjoy the next one.
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