Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) was one of the original members of the Major Case Response Team on NCIS, but he departed the team (and the series) back in 2016. Now, he’s headed back to the long-running procedural for a season-long arc, but what’s brought him back to the MCRT? We finally know the answer. Wisecracking ex-cop DiNozzo was the senior field agent for the MCRT under head honcho Leroy Gibbs (Mark Harmon) for thirteen seasons. For much of that time, he found himself romantically entangled with former Mossad agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo); the two had a tempestuous relationship, much-beloved by the show’s fanbase, that seemingly ended with her death.
However, it eventually emerged that Ziva had faked their death and concealed that she’d had a daughter with DiNozzo; DiNozzo left the team to care for his newfound child. DiNozzo and David were reunited on the Paramount+-exclusive spin-off series, NCIS: Tony and Ziva, in 2025; it was cancelled after a single season.
CBS has now revealed the synopsis for NCIS‘ season 24 premiere, “Warward Son,” which will bring DiNozzo back into the fold; it will also wrap up the explosive cliffhanger from season 23’s finale, which saw Mateo Garcia (Patrick Keleher), the son of NCIS second-in command Timoth McGee (Sean Murray), get shot by a mystery assailant: “While dealing with the fallout from the shooting involving McGee’s son, the team investigates a mysterious new threat to the Secretary of the Navy and receives help from an unexpected source: Tony DiNozzo, newly arrived in D.C. to open a satellite office of his private security firm.” “Wayward Son” will premiere on CBS on Tuesday, October 6, and will stream on Paramount+ the next day.
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Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
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⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
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01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
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02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
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03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
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04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
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05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
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06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
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07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
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08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
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09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
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10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
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Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
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🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
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You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
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You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
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Will Ziva Also Appear in Season 24 of ‘NCIS’?
Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo turning to look at something in NCIS: Tony & ZivaImage via Paramount+
Fans hoping for another Tony and Ziva reunion will be disappointed. While Tony and Ziva haven’t broken up, de Pablo won’t be joining Weatherly on the show this season. NCIS showrunner Steven D. Binder explains that their daughter, Tali, is attending boarding school elsewhere in the United States, and Ziva is living closer to her. That’ll separate her from MCRT’s home base in Washington, D.C., for the season.
Season 24 of NCIS will premiere on Tuesday, October 6. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
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Release Date
September 23, 2003
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Showrunner
Donald P. Bellisario
Directors
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Dennis Smith, Terrence O’Hara, Tony Wharmby, James Whitmore Jr., Thomas J. Wright, Michael Zinberg, Arvin Brown, Rocky Carroll, Diana Valentine, Leslie Libman, Tawnia McKiernan, Colin Bucksey, William Webb, Bethany Rooney, Alrick Riley, Jeff Woolnough, Alan J. Levi, Lionel Coleman, Martha Mitchell, Peter Ellis, Michael Weatherly, Edward Ornelas, Stephen Cragg, Tom Wright
Writers
George Schenck, Frank Cardea, Jesse Stern, John C. Kelley, Jennifer Corbett, Christopher Silber, Reed Steiner, Nicole Mirante-Matthews, Jack Bernstein, Scott J. Jarrett, Matthew R. Jarrett, Kimberly-Rose Wolter, Don McGill, Gil Grant, Frank Military, Nell Scovell, Steven Kriozere, Brian Dietzen, Kate Torgovnick May, Jeff Vlaming, Sydney Mitchel, Katie White, Richard C. Arthur, Laurence Walsh
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