CBS dropped the first trailer for NCIS Season 24 this week, and it settles the question fans have been asking since spring: Michael Weatherly is back as Tony DiNozzo, and he’s not just stopping by.
“Something bad is coming down the pike…very bad, and some very smart people are worried about it,” Tony warns his old team in the footage, first reported by TVLine.
Tony left NCIS headquarters back in Season 13, trading a badge for fatherhood and, eventually, a private security firm of his own. According to showrunner Steven D. Binder, this return has a practical hook rather than a nostalgic one: Tony’s daughter Tali is now attending boarding school in the United States, and he’s opening a satellite office for his firm in Washington, D.C. That puts him back in NCIS’s orbit right as something involving the agency lands on his radar, and his old world and his new one collide whether he likes it or not.
“Oh, the orange walls…very special non-agent Anthony DiNozzo is back,” Tony says upon stepping back into the bullpen, sizing up the place like a man who never quite left.
He’s changed since then, or at least he wants Tim McGee to think so.
Related: Michael Weatherly Calls NCIS Return ‘Truly Amazing’
“It’s a new me, Tim. Accept it,” Tony tells his old partner, who’s spent the years since Tony’s exit running the team Tony once needled him on.
Whatever’s coming, Tony still trusts McGee to see the team through it.
“If NCIS Special Agent Tim McGee is paying attention, then it’s all going to work out,” he says, a line that plays as much like an apology as it does a compliment.
Movieguide® has tracked Weatherly’s DiNozzo since long before this comeback. His slow-burn partnership with Ziva David, played by Cote de Pablo, defined NCIS for the better part of a decade, and Movieguide® reported on the Paramount+ spinoff NCIS: TONY & ZIVA that finally let the pair navigate marriage and parenthood together. That series wrapped after one season, but Movieguide®’s review found real substance in its portrait of two flawed people trying to build a family, alongside content concerns that kept it geared toward older viewers.
This time, Tony comes back changed by fatherhood rather than chasing a case. That’s worth noting for Christian families who’ve followed him from a wisecracking bachelor agent to a father reordering his life around his daughter’s education. Scripture doesn’t shy away from prodigal returns, and there’s something recognizable in a man who left one life behind for a better one, only to find the two aren’t so easy to keep separate once family and old loyalties start pulling in the same direction. Whether NCIS plays that tension for laughs, drama, or something deeper remains to be seen once the season actually airs, but the setup at least gives Tony somewhere to grow beyond one-liners.
There’s still no confirmation on whether de Pablo will follow Weatherly back, leaving Ziva’s role in Tony’s new chapter an open question. What is confirmed is the timeline: NCIS returns for its Season 24 premiere Tuesday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, with Tony DiNozzo’s badge-free return to the fold set to run the length of the season.
