'NCIS' season 17: Ziva's past is strongly linked with Sahar's and it could make for some surprising revelations in the future
Fans have been waiting for NCIS season 17 excitedly after season 16 ended with the surprise appearance of Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) in Leroy Gibb's (Mark Harmon) basement. This time, Gibbs wasn't hallucinating and the trailer for season 17 episode 1 'Out of the Darkness', shows Ziva spiriting Gibbs to safety after telling him, "You're in danger", just before the bullets start flying.
The mystery antagonist appears for a few seconds in the trailer as Ziva explains to Gibbs, while they are escaping through some tunnels, that she is 'Sahar' (Mouzam Makkar), who wants her dead. "And now she’s after you,” Ziva explains, revealing that she doesn't know her and has never laid eyes on her. However, Ziva might be linked to Sahar more closely than she could possibly imagine.
Earlier in an interview about Ziva's storyline on the season, NCIS co-showrunner Steven Binder had teased that the season's antagonist wasn't "some newly created archnemesis" and that they were "playing with the DNA of Ziva David in terms of this jeopardy" and that the plot would tie into "the lore and history of the show".
Binder explained that the genesis of Ziva's story this season was "something that has been part of the fabric of the show, her character and the introduction of her character from the very beginning". Given that Ziva was introduced in season three in the episode 'Kill Ari Part 1', Sahar is probably connected to Ari Haswari (Rudolf Martin), who was revealed to be Ziva's half-brother and rogue Mossad operative. Back then, Ziva ended up killing Ari in the very next episode when he tried to murder Gibbs.
Ari had a complicated backstory. He was born in 1969 to Dr. Benjamin Weinstein (the undercover alias of Mossad agent and future Mossad director Eli David), and Dr. Hasmia Haswari, an Arab woman, while they were both doctors working together at a hospital in Jerusalem. This made him Ziva's paternal half-brother. Over time, while working alongside his mother at a local clinic in the Gaza strip and also as an undercover Mossad agent, Ari began to resent his father. He believed that like Ziva, Eli had shaped him to be a Mossad mole inside Hamas. He eventually became a double agent for both Mossad and a series of unnamed terrorist groups.
Sahar might be Ari's associate from one of these terror groups since the official description of episode 2 reveals that "with their lives in danger, Gibbs and Ziva's rogue investigation takes an unexpected turn when a possible terrorist plot is revealed". Fan theories have talked of an even stronger connection, speculating that Sahar could be the mother of Ari's daughter or Ari's maternal half-sister, just like Sergei Mishnev (Alex Veadov), who was Ari's maternal half-brother and the main antagonist in Season 12. Mishnev had also sought to take revenge on Gibbs not knowing that Ziva was the one who had killed Ari.
But whoever Sahar is, she is someone who has forced Ziva out of hiding after she had successfully faked her death (off-screen) in season 13. Ziva's move might mean that she has put Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and her daughter (played by twins Emelia and Layla Golfieri) in danger as well since Sahar could go after them to draw her out. We will only know once season 17 premieres on Tuesday, September 24 at 8 pm on CBS.