NCIS Finale Review: Tony and Ziva's World Upended as Tali's Kidnapping Redefines Their Family
After barely slipping Jonah Markham’s grasp in Episode 9, NCIS: Tony & Ziva slams into its finale with Full Circle—a payoff-packed hour that swaps dangling threads for relentless tension.
After the chaos of Episode 9, where Tony and Ziva barely wriggled free of Jonah Markham, I went into the NCIS: Tony & Ziva finale waiting to see if the show would actually answer anything or just dangle more threads. Episode 10, 'Full Circle', does the former. It raises the stakes, pays them off, and still leaves just enough to chew on.
The setup: family first, everything else second
We open on the worst-case scenario: Tali is kidnapped, and Jonah is calling the shots. This is less a case and more a full-on stress test of Tony and Ziva as parents and partners. New additions Martine and Dejan Lazar drop in with sharp intel and sharper instincts, and the four of them try to flip Jonah's game back on him.
The drone problem (and the very messy fix)
The finale leans into a nasty paradox. Jonah's 'Reigning Fire' drone plan backfires, and the drones target him instead of helping him. Sounds like a win, except Jonah still controls Tali's fate. That forces Tony and Ziva into a brutal corner: they have to shoot down the drones to protect their daughter, which also ends up keeping Jonah alive long enough to hold on to his leverage. It is a cleanly staged, high-anxiety sequence that makes sense of a messy situation without over-explaining it.
Weatherly and de Pablo carry it (again)
Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo are the engine here. Tony's comedy-defense-mechanism meets real fear, Ziva's steel meets vulnerability, and the whole thing clicks. The new team members hold their own: Martine is laser-focused and quietly ambitious, Dejan brings heart and brains, and together they give the finale some new textures that the show needed at this point in the season.
Does 'Full Circle' stick the landing?
Surprisingly, yeah. The finale ties off the big plot without feeling rushed. Jonah Markham's fate lands in that murky space between justice and question mark: he is reported dead by suicide, but Martine has a gut-level read that keeps the moment from feeling tidy. The pacing balances action beats with quieter character choices, which matters because the episode is really about what comes next for this family.
'Take it slow.'
That is Tali's line, and it grounds Tony and Ziva's decision to finally give their relationship a real shot. It feels earned, not gimmicky.
Where everyone lands by the end
- Tony, Ziva, and Tali: bruised but together, and actually trying to be a family, with Tali gently steering the pace.
- Jonah Markham: reported death by suicide; not everyone buys the neatness of that conclusion, including Martine.
- Martine: still playing the long game, with a very public ambition to become the next Secretary General of Interpol.
- Dejan Lazar: a fresh start and a reunion with his son, which gives the season an unexpected bit of warmth.
- Claudette and Sophie: their relationship goes public, which adds a welcome dose of normalcy to all the spycraft.
- Ellen, Julia, Henry: the show checks in without overdoing it, hinting at new arcs instead of closing the book.
- Boris: nursing a busted heart and bank account after falling for Fruzsi, a conwoman; Tony and Claudette pull him into their orbit, which is both kind and complicated.
The quibbles
If the Jonah development reads a little convenient to you, you are not alone. And the show skims the tech side of Reigning Fire and the drones when it could have dug deeper. But the character work lands so consistently that those issues don’t crater the episode.
The bottom line
'Full Circle' is a proper finale: tense, personal, and surprisingly generous with closure while still leaving space for a Season 2. It is worth your time.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva Season 1 is streaming now on Paramount+. Did this ending give you enough closure? And are you actually ready to see Tony and Ziva try the real thing? Sound off below.