The seventeenth season of NCIS, an American police procedural drama television series, originally aired on CBS from September 24, 2019 through April 14, 2020. The season was produced by Belisarius Productions and CBS Television Studios. The season only contained 20 episodes, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When Ziva returns, warning Gibbs that his life is in danger, the two are forced on the run to locate Sahar, the mastermind responsible. Meanwhile, the team investigates, with the revelation of Ziva's survival leaving major rifts amongst them.
The investigation into the threat on Gibbs and Ziva takes a turn when attacks are made on Congressmen. After being cornered by NCIS and Ziva, Sahar enacts "plan C", which results in her and her henchmen being killed. During these events, Gibbs and Ziva make peace after the latter reveals to having felt abandoned by Gibbs not looking for her when her death was reported, and Ziva tells Gibbs she has one more thing she needs to do alone before reuniting with her family.
After a body is found underneath a truck entering the Navy Yard, the investigation into the man's death leads them to a trailer park with a number of interesting residents. Sloane tries to get the team to talk regarding Ziva's recent appearance and departure.
The NCIS team investigates a bizarre crime scene at Arlington National Cemetery which is linked to a string of attacks on homeless veterans. Meanwhile, as a punishment for lying to Director Vance regarding Ziva's sudden reappearance, McGee, Bishop and Torres will have to spend their entire day conducting evidence garage cleanup.
NCIS investigates Marine Corporal Laney Alimonte after evidence suggests she murdered her neighbor while being treated for insomnia by a hypnotherapist. Meanwhile, Gibbs befriends his new neighbors, a single mother and her 9-year old son, after the latter’s baseball accidentally crashes through his window.
NCIS investigates the murder of a petty officer that was live-streamed on a popular video gaming app. Meanwhile, Gibbs watches his 9-year old neighbor, Phineas (Jack Fisher), when his mother must leave on a last-minute trip.
Gibbs helps Phineas's mother, Sarah, with a plumbing issue and notices a cut on her hand. She brushes it off as scraping it against a pipe. Meanwhile, Ziva's landlady Odette instructs Bishop to retrieve a flash drive at a club in exchange for $100k, but instead of handing it to Odette (revealed to have been fired from a special CIA operation), she presents it to the team. The lone file on the drive is a picture of an unidentified man dragging Ziva's friend Adam Eshel into an abandoned factory. Flashbacks show Ziva in the time elapsed from Eli's farmhouse explosion. The investigation reveals that the "Sahar" killed previously is an impostor. Gibbs and Ziva arrive too late to save Adam, but he tells them that the real Sahar is "someone you know" before dying. They come to realize Adam was talking to Gibbs instead of Ziva, leading them to the conclusion that Sahar is Gibbs' neighbor Sarah, and Gibbs is forced to kill her during her confrontation with Ziva. Odette offers "special training" to Bishop at Ziva's office, and Gibbs reluctantly heads upstairs at his house to tell Phineas about his mother.
Gibbs gets deeply and personally involved in a case when Phineas goes missing, to the concern of his team regarding his well-being. The case also hits home with Torres, having busted a child trafficking ring while deep undercover. Victor Mir, the club owner who NCIS has crossed paths with before, is revealed to be Halabi, a man working in a terrorist ring with the brother of Phineas’s biological father, and the team arrests him before he can take Phineas to his uncle in Libya. Phineas is then reunited with his foster parents, from whom he was separated when his mother lied to him about them not wanting him anymore. Ziva then bids her farewells to the team as Jimmy prepares to take her to the airport so she can fly to Paris and reunite with her family.
While investigating the crash of a Navy fighter jet, the team discovers the pilot had faked her death. Meanwhile, McGee is concerned about getting a vasectomy.
When the body of a Marine is found at a drone testing site, NCIS must determine if it was murder or an accident. Meanwhile, Jimmy carefully interviews candidates for the medical examiner assistant position.
While Torres and Bishop are out jogging, Torres is hit by a speeding car. As Torres is comatose, NCIS and a vengeful Bishop must navigate a political minefield involving Xavier Zolotov, the spoiled son of an influential Russian family. During the investigation, the team finds Zolotov murdered, presumably by his girlfriend, who was a material suspect in Torres's previous undercover assignment years earlier. A strand of blonde hair is found at the crime scene (the girlfriend is blonde), leading the team to suspect her, though McGee is uneasy that Bishop may have followed through with her intention to kill Zolotov. However, after she confirms she did not do so at the end of the episode, McGee begins to suspect that Gibbs may have killed Zolotov to protect her.
The lead suspect for the murders of two Marines is a woman that Gibbs' friend, Phillip Brooks (Don Lake), met on a dating website. Meanwhile, Sloane has a secret admirer on Valentine's Day, and Torres is out of the hospital from the hit-and-run incident.
While investigating the suicide of a retired Navy chief petty officer who left a rare, valuable - and possibly stolen - coin to the National Museum of the Navy, the team imagines themselves in his life story in order to piece together how the coin ended up in his possession.
NCIS investigates the murder of a petty officer who was killed in the exact same manner as his parents were 10 years prior. The victim's sister, Claire, has recreated "nutshell" displays depicting her parents' deaths, which assists the team in the investigation. Meanwhile, the team agrees to clean out some of their personal belongings to donate to a charity, but some have a harder time letting go than others. The episode ends with Bishop receiving a text from Odette.
When a seemingly well-regarded Marine is found dead in a lake near where a popular community event is being held, the team comes to realize he is a wanted hacker. Meanwhile, Sloane’s biological daughter Faith, requests her father’s medical history, unintentionally forcing Sloane to confront that man: he had raped her after a college party. Sloane makes sure he’ll give Faith what she asks for, lie about the circumstances of her birth, and to never contact her again, but Faith puts two and two together and thanks Sloane for giving her up for adoption in order to protect her from her biological father.
Jimmy and Kasie are held hostage in the diner Gibbs frequently visits after three armed burglars mismanage a heist at a nearby jewelry store. The leader kills their driver beforehand due to the latter spilling details to his wife, who later relays it to Vance and Sloane. A cook at the diner shoots one of the burglars in an attempt to free the patrons, later resulting in the crook’s death and his fellow robbers forcing Jimmy to cut out the diamonds he had swallowed. This gives Jimmy and Kasie the idea to convince them they are bleeding internally from broken glass, saving the other patrons and ending the hostage situation.
The team tries to verify the identity of Joe Smith, who claims to have served on the U.S.S. Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attacks and wants his ashes interred there when he dies. Meanwhile, McGee unwittingly gets roped into a family reunion of people he doesn't know.
Note: This episode was dedicated to the Pearl Harbor victims as well as the first responders and those on the frontlines battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Production
NCIS was renewed for a seventeenth season on April 11, 2019.[23]
On March 13, 2020, CBS announced that the filming of season 17 had been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[24] Storylines planned for what would have been Episodes 21-24 are confirmed to have been integrated into the Season 18 episodes "Everything Starts Somewhere" and "Sunburn." Executive producer Frank Cardea teased a "very surprising ending" that was altered due to the pandemic. Fans have speculated that this was either the exit of Maria Bello's Jacqueline Sloane (which was postponed until the Season 18 episode "True Believer") or an on-screen reunion of former main cast members Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo as Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David, though neither theory was confirmed.
This is the first and only season not to feature Joe Spano in his recurring role as Tobias Fornell, though he is mentioned numerous times in the season's eighth episode, "Musical Chairs." The fact that the opening arc of the next season would conclude the episode's arc regarding Fornell and his daughter, which began in the Season 16 finale, has led to speculation that this story was intended to be the basis for the unproduced final episode of Season 17.
Broadcast
The seventeenth season of NCIS premiered on September 24, 2019.[25]
Ratings
Viewership and ratings per episode of NCIS season 17
