NCIS season 10 finale airs in less than a week, but instead of mourning the fact that the show will be off all summer, we’ve decided to celebrate the past 10 seasons by highlighting our favorite episodes.
So far we’ve listed the 10 best Abby episodes, the 10 best McGee episodes, the 10 best Gibbs episodes, and the 10 best Tony episodes.
Now it’s Ziva’s turn. Here are our top 10 Ziva episodes.
#10 “Singled Out”
Season 4, episode 3: Probably the lightest episode on this list, this one was chosen because it has some of the most fun moments we’ve seen with Ziva in the series. Dressing up as a geek for an undercover assignment, Ziva gets to partake in speed-dating and amuse all of her coworkers in the process.
#9 “Semper Fidelis”
Season 6, episode 24: Things that have been heating up all season boil over by the end of this episode. Ziva has been keeping her relationship with Michael close to the vest, leaving Tony confused and resorting to desperate measure to get to the truth. Knowing that things are going too far, Ziva makes a desperate call back home to get Michael removed but not before it’s too late.
#8 “Aliyah”
Season 6, episode 25: After the tragedy that happened in her apartment. Ziva is shattered to discover that Tony has killed the man that she thinks she could have loved. Gibbs and Tony follow her to Israel to take back Michael’s body and there her father asks her things that make her question where her loyalties lie. Ultimately she decides to stay in Israel and finish Michael’s mission herself.
#7 “Jeopardy”
Season 3, episode 22: Ziva and Tony bring back a very annoying suspect and Ziva is tasked with taking him up from the garage to the squad room. By the time their elevator ride ends, the suspect is dead and Ziva is under investigation for causing the man’s death. Watching Ziva stress over what she may have done wrong and having to deal with the emotions that come with that make this one a great Ziva episode.
#6 “Recoil”
Season 5, episode 16: This is another episode that brought out a different side to Ziva. After going undercover to catch a serial killer, Ziva’s cover is blown and she is nearly killed before she manages to take down the madman. The rest of the episode, we see Ziva struggling with her emotions and she deals with how close she came to death.
#5 “Shalom”
Season 4, episode 1: Gibbs is off on his Mexican hiatus and Tony is team leader when Ziva stumbles across an assassination that seems to have been committed by people she knows in Mossad. When it becomes clear that she is being framed for the killing, Gibbs comes out of retirement to help Tony and the rest of the team save her. It was in this episode that we see how far Ziva had grown after her first year with the team. As she says in the end, she’s not just a killer, she’s an investigator.
#4 “Dead Man Walking”
Season 4, episode 16: In this episode, a man walks into NCIS and asks the team to solve a murder — his. Ziva immediately feels she knows the man and soon discovers that they pass each other nearly every day while running. As the episode goes on, Ziva grows closer to the man who sadly only has days to live. It was one of the first times we saw those cracks in her hard exterior.
#3 “Revenge”
Season 10, episode 22: In this episode, Ziva and the rest of the team have had a fairly long while to deal with the deaths of both her father and Vance’s wife. All of them want justice for the man behind the murders, but it’s Ziva who wants revenge. Even after being injured in a car accident, Ziva doesn’t let that from going after Bodnar and ultimately ending his life by her own hand (though she may deny it in later episodes).
#2 “Shabbat Shalom”
Season 10, episode 11: Ziva’s father comes into town for a surprise visit and soon Eli is having a special dinner with Vance and his family. The happy occasion comes to an abrupt end when gunfire erupts. Ziva and Gibbs race to Vance’s home and there her worst fears are realized. Ziva screaming for her father is one of the most heartbreaking and chilling moments we’ve seen from her in the entire series.
#1 “Shiva”
Season 10, episode 12: Though this episode immediately follows another episode on our list (“Shabbat Shalom”), we are putting it in its own place. During the immediate aftermath of her father’s murder, we see sides of Ziva we’ve never been privy to before. Not just the softer side that mourns her father death, but the angry side that plans to avenge it.
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
