Who does Ziva end up with in NCIS? The Tony & Ziva finale settled it — and a darker ending was shot too
NCIS: Tony & Ziva gave Paramount+ ten episodes of European chases before addressing the relationship question fans had carried for more than a decade. How the finale resolves Ziva's love life, what the last scene actually shows, and the very different closing sequence that was filmed, cut, and never aired.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva reunited Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo on Paramount+ in fall 2025, roughly a decade after their characters last shared a screen, and spent ten episodes making them clear their names across Europe before answering the only question most viewers brought to it.
The answer: Ziva ends up with Tony. Officially, on screen, with their daughter's blessing.
How the finale gets there
The season 1 finale, "Full Circle," streamed October 23, 2025. By then Tony and Ziva had been framed for terrorism and for robbing Interpol, both courtesy of Jonah Markham (Julian Ovenden), who caps his run by kidnapping their daughter Tali (Isla Gie). Beating him requires an alliance with Martine (Nassima Benchicou) — the operative who helped frame them — plus some quick thinking around hacker Boris's 9.4 AI and a weapons drone that ends up pointed at Jonah himself.
The scoreboard at the end: names cleared, Tali safe, Jonah arrested and then dead in his cell — a tidy piece of work heavily implied to be Martine's, who is simultaneously moving up at Interpol. Boris, robbed blind by Fruzsi, is left eyeing a job at Tony and Claudette's security firm.
Read more: Where are NCIS actors now? Two of the departed ended up with a whole new show together
The scene that closes the series
With the plot cleared away, Tali signs off on her parents getting back together, and Ziva hands Tony a framed photo of Tali with Henry — the confidant whose death she carried through the season's back half. The show ends with the two of them holding each other in their Paris apartment, in silence, which for these two characters counts as a radical development.
"The final moment we went with is a credit to Cote and Michael," showrunner John McNamara told TheWrap in October 2025.
The ending you didn't see
McNamara has been open about the fact that this wasn't the ending as scripted. Three additional scenes were shot — darker, more thriller, ending on a cliffhanger — and director Dennis Smith filmed them in full. After watching the cut, McNamara pulled them, deciding the quiet apartment scene was the real close and the cliffhanger material could open a second season instead. He refused to describe the cut scenes, calling the details a season 2 question, but he did list the cast of the missing sequence for Give Me My Remote:
"Tony, Ziva, a waiter, a sommelier, and some guys," McNamara said in October 2025.
Make of the sommelier what you will.
Why that footage is staying in the vault
Paramount+ canceled the series in December 2025 after one season, despite solid reviews and an audience that had waited years for the reunion. The alternate ending was never released and now has no season to open. The accidental upside: because McNamara swapped endings in the edit, the show closed on resolution instead of a dangling cliffhanger. In the NCIS universe, a cancellation and actual closure arriving in the same package is close to a first.
Earlier we wrote: Rob Reiner’s posthumous Emmy for 'The Bear' leads roundup of five other after-death wins