In the world of NCIS, romance is usually something that’s meant to be faked while undercover. So is anyone completely surprised that Season 6 ended with Tony and Ziva—better known to some fans as Tiva—half a world away from each other, nursing separately inflicted wounds, rather than nuzzling nose-to-nose?
Executive producer Shane Brennan spoke with TV Guide on the eve of the final episode, and he can confirm that both Tony and Ziva will survive to live and bicker another day in Season 7. But first, a brief recap of where Season 6 left us:
Tony and Ziva’s parting? Not such sweet sorrow. In the season’s penultimate episode, a highly suspicious Tony visited Ziva’s apartment and encountered her Israeli assassin/boyfriend, Rivkin. Coffee tables were shattered, glass shards and pistols were pulled, and Ziva walked in just in time to perform unsuccessful CPR on her critically injured BF. This week, Gibbs, Tony and Ziva all begrudgingly took off for a courtesy call to Tel Aviv, where Ziva literally kicked Tony while he was down. When it came time to fly back to the Beltway, Ziva abruptly announced that she couldn’t work with Tony any more… and Gibbs said, in effect: Have a nice life, and feel free to air-mail your final expense report. This was so not the makeout scene “shippers” had been hoping for.
But, of course, Ziva will be back—albeit bruised, battered, and worse for the wear, now that she’s learning that putting up with Tony the Friendly Boyfriend Slayer at home assuredly beats being tortured by unknown baddies in the Middle East. But we’ll pick up with Shane Brennan summarizing that final cliffhanger, for anyone who missed it:
Shane Brennan: Tony looked at Gibbs and said, “I guess she’ll call when she’s ready,” and then flipped his phone closed. When he flips his phone closed, we hear the clank of a door being slammed, and we see a Middle Eastern guy who’s in a sort of quasi-military uniform walking down a corridor very casually. He goes into a locked room, reaches across to someone sitting on a chair, and it’s Ziva. And he pulls off her Star of David from around her neck, grabs her by the hair and says, “Tell me everything about NCIS.” And she’s had the crap beaten out of her. So where we’re left is realizing that Tony’s not gonna go looking for her, after saying “She’ll call when she’s ready” and Gibbs saying “Give her time,” because at that point, Ziva’s not close to a phone. So that’s where we’ll pick it up at the beginning of next season.
TV Guide Magazine: And for now, we don’t know who’s got Ziva?
No. We know that she’s gone off to finish the work that Rivkin started, which was to locate this training camp in North Africa. We saw her on the ship with her Israeli comrades, and then we see her captured at the very end. So we know that that mission didn’t end well for her. Now, the mission itself may have succeeded, we don’t know any of that. What I can promise about the beginning of next season: We leave Ziva locked up in that room being interrogated, but the audience’s expectation of what they think they’re gonna see next will be totally turned on its head in the first few minutes of the first episode next season. It’ll be a shock to them. I can guarantee they will go, what just happened? It’s very surprising—it’s a great opening episode next season.
Is the “Tiva” relationship played out for a while? Will there be an aftermath to look forward on that?
Oh, there’s a middle-math as well as an aftermath! There’s clearly unfinished business between Tony and Ziva, and we’ll play it out at the beginning of next season.
That was quite a cold shoulder Gibbs gave Ziva upon their rather abrupt farewell in Israel.
You can safely say she’s upset that she is left on the tarmac. She’s upset that she’s not going back with them. But there’s a divided loyalty here. And as her father says, “You’re loyal to me, finish Michael’s business—finish what he started.” And she put the question to Gibbs about Tony, and it was Gibbs who was forced to make a choice. When I talked to you earlier in the season about Gibbs having to make a choice that would send shock waves, the choice he had to make was to leave her behind. She forced him to choose, and he chose Michael—or Tony.
Tough love, for Gibbs? Surely he’s not quite that disgusted with Ziva.
Yeah, it’s tough love, and it’s something that when he gets back there and he’s talking with Ducky in the basement, you get that sense of, have I done the right thing here? It’s a rare moment where Gibbs is torn. “She forced me to make a decision, because she gave me an ultimatum.” He doesn’t like the decision that he had to make. There’s hope for Gibbs that this is going to somehow be resolved. When he goes to Vance’s office and says “I’ll let you know in a few months about who we’re going to replace her with,” he’s hoping that she’s gonna come back to him and say, "You know what, I screwed up, I made a bad decision—take me back." That’s what’s in his heart.
Source: TV Guide Magazine
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