NCIS: when does Ziva come back? The show spent half a season preparing you before showing her face
Cote de Pablo last played Ziva David in the season 11 opener in 2013. The character was later presumed dead, killed in a mortar attack on her farmhouse in Israel. Six years later she walked through Gibbs' front door. The buildup took months.
Ziva returns in the final seconds of season 16, episode 24, "Daughters," which aired May 21, 2019. She then appears in four episodes of season 17: the two-part premiere in September 2019, and episodes 10 and 11, which aired December 17, 2019 and January 7, 2020.
The setup started in February
CBS ran a Super Bowl LIII spot on February 3, 2019, promising the biggest NCIS secret of all was about to be revealed. Nine days later came season 16, episode 13, "She," watched by 13.37 million people.
In it, Bishop works a ten-year-old cold case and discovers Ziva never dropped it — she'd rented a secret office and kept journals on cases she pursued off the books. When Bishop goes to read a victim's letter to the kidnapper, he tells her a woman already did it, and promised to haunt his dreams. Bishop returns to the office and finds a note under a scarf:
"Eleanor Bishop, For the safety of my family, Please keep my secret."
Three months of mentions followed before the finale paid it off.
How they hid it
The scene wasn't in any script. Only showrunners Frank Cardea and Steven D. Binder knew. De Pablo came through a back gate more than an hour after the regular crew had wrapped, and filmed it after midnight with a skeleton crew. Diona Reasonover, who plays Kasie, has said she found out watching the broadcast like everyone else.
Ziva's first line: no time for pleasantries, Gibbs is in danger. His only response is her name.
Why she left in the first place
De Pablo rarely discusses it, but she explained the decision at a 2016 Babson College appearance, saying she walked because of politics and scripts that weren't good enough — and that the plan for Ziva was to send her back to Israel and make her miserable. She's said she wouldn't return until someone wrote something worth returning for.
Where the story went next
Season 17 gave Ziva a proper exit rather than a reunion: she finishes what she started and heads to Paris to reunite with Tony and Tali. That thread became its own show. NCIS: Tony & Ziva premiered on Paramount+ on September 4, 2025, with de Pablo opposite Michael Weatherly, and its first season is complete.
Fun bit of trivia: de Pablo has said the cast stood and applauded when she walked back onto the set.