'NCIS' Season 17 Episode 12: Maybe Bishop could be a replacement for Ziva's badassery after all
This article contains spoilers for Season 17, Episode 12: 'Flight Plan'.
Last week on 'NCIS', in what was Cote de Pablo's last listed appearance this season, we saw her character Ziva David part with her long-time coworkers with severely emotional goodbyes. One of them being Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham) where she talks about how Bishop has not only filled in Ziva's shoes but successfully outgrown them and proven herself. This is proven further by tonight's Episode 12 of Season 17, where we see Bishop pull a Ziva and effortlessly crack a case the way her senior would have in her time on the show.
The official synopsis of the episode titled 'Flight Plan' states: "The NCIS team investigates an F-18 crash and the subsequent disappearance of the pilot who operated the aircraft. Also, McGee reluctantly discusses a very personal decision with his teammates." Apart from the McGee getting a vasectomy bit — where Bishop tries to pacify him but fails miserably in what has been labeled as the most awkward conversation on the show so far, Bishop does pretty well on the other fronts. Especially when she cracks the case of Naval Lieutenant Rebecca Weeks and helps her from getting framed for a murder she didn't commit.
From Weeks' going AWOL on a routine mission to her getting dragged into the murder investigation of an ex-boyfriend, Petty Officer First Class Fisher Patrick, Weeks goes through a lot. She is believed to be absconding in her godfather's plane, and later Patrick is found murdered on her bunk bed with pills that belonged to Weeks as well — thus making her a prime suspect.
But things change when the car that Weeks hijacked on her run was discovered to belong to Navy Commander Marshall May. May's wife had reportedly died in a fatal accident in the same car that she believed was hacked, so obviously the team looks into it and finds that someone had helped May hack into his wife's car and kill her in a crash all because they were having 'marital problems'.
These problems turned out to be an affair between May, and of all people — Weeks' bunkmate. The same woman had used May's code to hack into his wife's car and cause the crash, and later, murdered Patrick because Weeks had told him about her suspicions surrounding May murdering his wife.
Weeks had wanted to report it to the authorities and even though they tried their best to frame Weeks for Patrick's murder, eventually Bishop was able to add two plus two and pull off the arrest with just the same kind of badassery one would expect from Ziva. So worry not fans, for as long as our beloved Ziva is AWOL again, we have Bishop stepping in to carry on the task effortlessly.
'NCIS' Season 17 airs on Tuesdays at 8pm only on CBS.
