When NCIS wants to deliver a punch, they really go straight for the gut, don’t they?
We always knew that tonight’s episode(January 8) — which saw the return of Ziva’s father Eli (Michael Nouri) — would be an emotionally-charged one. (His relationship with his daughter is nothing if not flawed.) But don’t think anyone could have predicted that he’d be dead by the end of the hour.
It all went down after Ziva (Cote de Pablo) realized that her father was responsible for a murder the team was investigating. Angered, she essentially told her father that his hopes for redemption/reconciliation were moot. Saddened, Eli asked that she join him for one last meal, as they were scheduled to have dinner at Vance’s (Rocky Carroll) house. She obliged. But before they could dig in, bullets rained over the home, and both Eli and Vance’s wife Jackie were hit.
Ziva pursued and caught up with the shooter, but before she or Gibbs could get any info from the injured man, he poisoned himself.
Back at the house, Ziva arrived to the unthinkable news that her father was dead. Inside, she cried over his body as Tony looked on, clearly boiling with a need for revenge.
Cote de Pablo was absolutely fantastic in this scene — the crying, the praying in Hebrew.
Over at the hospital, the rest of the team waited for word on Vance’s wife, who had been seriously injured. But that, too, had a sad ending; she passed away.
So with two family members dead, the NCIS team will no doubt be out for major revenge next week.