NCIS lost one of its veteran cast members when the writers rushed to write Cote de Pablo off the show. Her co-star, Michael Weatherly, was especially close to de Pablo. However, Weatherly believed his role in NCIS opened up in a new way without his partner Ziva David.

Michael Weatherly felt Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David was a crutch

Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly had huge influences on each other’s NCIS careers. De Pablo famously shared that she was hired for NCIS after auditioning with Weatherly, who threw her off her game by improvising unexpectedly. De Pablo’s Ziva David also gave Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo a unique and long-term love interest to play around with.

De Pablo’s departure allowed Weatherly’s DiNozzo to grow in a way he might not have been able to if Ziva was still present. In season 12, Weatherly looked forward to helping his character mature.

“But I think that Tony, this season, has been without his foil in the way of Ziva David,” Weatherly said in a resurfaced interview with TV Line. “In some ways, that’s been good for him because he didn’t have that crutch, that go-to. He kind of had to figure some stuff out. And listen, sometimes Tony’s a hot mess! I love him, but I think the guy probably has in the last season spent a few too many days feeling sorry for himself, sitting on the couch, eating Doritos and watching reruns of It Takes a Thief– during which he probably keeps saying to himself, “Wow, Robert Wagner looks just like my father.”

Season 12 also allowed Weatherly to trade banter with another female agent for a change. Back then, the cast welcomed Emily Wickersham’s Ellie Bishop to the team. It was stated that the character was married when she was introduced. But Weatherly didn’t think that meant a potential love storyline was off the table. Especially when Weatherly felt Wickersham was attractive, something he wasn’t sure anyone else noticed.

“And I don’t know how happily married she can possibly be, she’s always with us,” he quipped.

Michael Weatherly felt Tony DiNozzo moved on from Ziva David

Whereas some fans might’ve still clung onto Ziva after her absence, Weatherly seemed certain that DiNozzo moved on from his partner. He pointed towards a pivotal scene between himself and de Pablo that he felt proved his argument.

“I believe that he has put Ziva in a drawer. The difficult part for him is that he said, ‘Come with me’ and she said, ‘I can’t do that.’ He was rebuffed, he was rejected, and the sting of that has been there for him all season. I don’t know how other people, including the viewers, see it, but that’s just how I processed it. And it was bittersweet because as Sting would say, ‘If you love someone, set them free,’” he said.

Weatherly believed, narratively, that David leaving was the best outcome for both characters. The decision would’ve allowed David to mature off-screen the same way it did for DiNozzo on the show.

“Tony had to let her go to follow her dream and her passion — and that didn’t include him. That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but he knows that she’s following her dream,” he said. “And that couldn’t make him happier, right?”

“So, I think now what’s happening is Tony has to figure out, ‘Hey what’s my dream?’ For DiNozzo, this is the next iteration of his thinking, which I think he’s coming around to,” Weatherly added.

Unlike their characters, Weatherly and de Pablo still kept in touch, with Weatherly being very supportive of his co-star’s post-NCIS career.

“Cote is an artist and is a really talented actor, and I am excited to see what her journey has been like,” he said.

Ironically, the two will be seeing a lot more of each other. They’re both set to return in the new NCIS spin-off Tony & Ziva, which is expected to release sometime in 2025.