Gibbs will ask Tony DiNozzo for help on NCIS: Origins, two weeks after Tony became NCIS director

Mark Harmon's Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Michael Weatherly's Tony DiNozzo will meet again on NCIS: Origins on October 20. Deadline frames it as a reunion "after a decade". In the episode, Gibbs, shot by unknown assailants in the Origins season 3 premiere, returns to NCIS headquarters in Washington to ask for help from the agency's new director: Tony.

That last detail is the surprise. Tony did not work his way up to the job over ten years. He got it at the end of a single episode, two weeks ago.

From private security to director in one episode

Weatherly's return to the main NCIS series was announced in July and happened in the season 24 premiere on October 6. According to Wikipedia, in that episode, "Wayward Son", Tony first helps the team with an investigation while opening a Washington office for his private security firm. By the end of the episode, he has been appointed Director of NCIS.

So the Tony whom Gibbs asks for help will have been running the agency for about two weeks of airtime.

"After a decade", more or less

The decade is real for the pairing. Weatherly left NCIS in 2016, at the end of season 13, after Tony learned he had a daughter with Ziva David. He said at the time that the character's story had come full circle and he was happy with the resolution. By the start of Origins season 3, Gibbs is living in Alaska.

Weatherly, though, did not stay away from the franchise for ten years. He made a cameo in the season 21 episode "The Stories We Leave Behind" and then reprised the role alongside Cote de Pablo in the spin-off NCIS: Tony & Ziva. What has been missing is Gibbs and Tony on screen together.

What the season is building

Showrunner David J. North told Deadline that when Gibbs is first seen in the premiere, he is still in Alaska with his trusted rescue dog, but the peace he found there will not be easy to keep. Ghosts from his past are catching up with him, perhaps enough to pull him out of retirement, and over the season the present-day story will turn out to be tied directly to his 1990s Camp Pendleton days.

Asked whether other NCIS legends might appear, North called it "a definite possibility".

• Harmon's role: a season-long arc as present-day Gibbs, on top of narrating the series.
• Young Gibbs: Austin Stowell.
• Also starring: Kyle Schmid, Mariel Molino, Tyla Abercrumbie, Diany Rodriguez and Caleb Foote.
• Executive producers: North, Mark Harmon, Sean Harmon, Michele Greco and Eric Christian Olsen. CBS Studios produces.
• Airs: Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, streaming on Paramount+.

Deadline's producer list leaves out one name: Wikipedia credits the series as created by Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North, and lists Monreal among its executive producers.

The show around the reunion

NCIS: Origins follows a young Gibbs in the early 1990s, years before the events of NCIS. It premiered on CBS on October 14, 2024, and has reached three seasons and 38 episodes, according to Wikipedia. The wider franchise also counts NCIS: Los Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaiʻi, Sydney, Tony & Ziva and NCIS: New York.

Tony's own history with the franchise is longer than NCIS itself. The character first appeared in "Ice Queen", an episode of JAG. Creator Don Bellisario first met Weatherly in Australia, where the actor was filming The Mystery of Natalie Wood, and Weatherly has said he was initially reluctant to join a JAG spin-off until that dinner with Bellisario won him over.

Tony's record, in order

• First appearance: "Ice Queen", on JAG.
• Casting: Weatherly was cast as DiNozzo in 2003.
• Behind the camera: Weatherly directed his own performance in the 2011 episode "One Last Score" and the 2013 episode "Seek".
• Exit: 2016, season 13, tired of the grind of production, in his words.
• Returns: a cameo in season 21, the spin-off NCIS: Tony & Ziva, then the season 24 premiere "Wayward Son" on October 6, 2026.
• Current job: Director of NCIS, as of the end of that episode.
• Next: NCIS: Origins, October 20.

What is still unknown

• Who shot Gibbs. The premiere left the assailants unknown.
• How long Weatherly stays on Origins, beyond the October 20 episode.
• Which other "legends" might appear. North only called it a possibility.
• How Tony became director, in story terms, so quickly. The premiere's resolution has been described only in summary.

Tony spent years as the senior field agent on Gibbs's team. On October 20, Gibbs walks back into headquarters to ask for help, and Tony is the one in the director's office.