Michael Weatherly is heading back to NCIS. CBS confirmed on Wednesday that he will return in a season-long arc, bringing Anthony DiNozzo back to the flagship drama years after he left as a series regular in 2016.
The timing is what makes the news land now. NCIS season 24 is set to return this fall, and Weatherly’s comeback puts one of the show’s original-era personalities back into the mix just as the franchise is leaning toward familiar names. Mark Harmon locked in an extended stint on NCIS: Origins one day earlier, a move that makes the wider reset even harder to miss.
Weatherly’s return also answers the question many NCIS viewers were already asking: what happens to Tony after the spinoff? He and Cote de Pablo reunited in 2025 for NCIS: Tony & Ziva, and Paramount+ canceled that series in December. The joint project left Tony and Ziva together, raising a daughter and living as fugitives, which is exactly why a solo Tony reappearance on NCIS needs a clean explanation.
Weatherly did not frame the move as a reset so much as a continuation. He said the pair felt “incredibly lucky” to get another chance to play the characters and tell the next chapter of Tony and Ziva’s story, and thanked the cast, crew, writers, directors, producers, CBS Studios and Paramount+ for making it happen. That leaves the central tension untouched: Tony is back, but de Pablo is not part of this confirmed return.
For now, the confirmed part is the simplest part. NCIS season 24 will include Sean Murray, Wilmer Valderrama, Brian Dietzen, Diona Reasonover, Katrina Law and Gary Cole when it returns this fall. The unresolved part is the one viewers will watch for first — how the show brings Tony DiNozzo back into the story without breaking the thread that tied him to Ziva in the spinoff.
