'NCIS' explains Tony's departure in the most tragic way possible
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Tony DiNozzo took his final ride down the NCIS elevator in Tuesday night's Season 13 finale, and while it's hard to see the character go, there's no denying it was for a good -- albeit tragic -- reason.
The top of the episode revealed to viewers that Ziva David, the former agent with whom Tony shared a special bond, was killed by the explosion that rocked her family's farm at the end of the last new episode.
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The news hit Tony like a million Gibbs head-slaps straight to the heart -- and he reacted exactly how you'd imagine. He was out for blood.
In one scene he marched into the NCIS office and began to yell at Gibbs after his boss denied him the chance to work on the case. Why would Gibbs not allow him to help solve the murder of a fellow agent when in the past it was always "all hands on deck," he asked.
"She was more than an agent to you," Gibbs replied, as Tony's dad arrived to take his sobbing son back home.
Viewers know Gibbs' statement to be true, but even we didn't know exactly how true that was until later in the episode when it was revealed that one person did survive the explosion: a young girl named Tali, Ziva's daughter. Well, Ziva and Tony's daughter.
Tony was understandably taken aback by the news and even a little angry at his deceased love for keeping this tiny, adorable secret from him. But any bitterness he held seemingly melted away as he became acquainted with his daughter.
It didn't take long for them to bond.
It also took no time at all for little Tali to have a big effect on Tony, who began to reconsider his direction in life.
Palmer had something to do with that. He came over the morning after Tali's first night at Tony's and their discussion veered into whether or not Tony would return to his dangerous line of work now that he was a single dad. When Palmer noticed his statement hit Tony hard, he redirected: As long as he's happy, Tali will be happy, he said.
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In the time that followed Tony did a lot of thinking on that, and realized his happiness was no longer in the chase, but in being a father.
"Everything she had in her life was gone ... except me. I'm it. I'm everything to that little girl now and I've never been anyone's everything before," he told Gibbs in his basement.
He was done. He planned to take his daughter to Israel and then to Paris.
"Ziva loves Paris," he said, using the present tense and likely reducing millions of viewers to tears.
'I'd say thank you but it doesn't quite cover it, boss," Tony said.
With that, Gibbs gave him one last order: "You take care of yourself and your family, DiNozzo."
"Copy that, boss," he replied.
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Has your heart broken in two or more pieces yet? Good. You're all caught up.
Find peace in this, though: NCIS may have killed Ziva, but as Michael Weatherly's tweet attests, there's no breaking up Ziva and Tony for good.
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Sandra Gonzalez was a Senior Television Reporter at Mashable. A Texas native, she spent almost four years in New York City before leaving the land of superstorms for Los Angeles, where she was introduced to these terrifying things called "rolling earthquakes."Previously, she was with Entertainment Weekly, where she wrote about every show that could fit into her perfectly crafted TV schedule and anything ever touched by Shonda Rhimes.You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @theSandraG
