Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS episode “Her” are ahead!
After the mystery of Alden Parker’s mother was solved, NCIS left viewers with a massive surprise before going on hiatus in December: a cameo from Emily Wickersham’s Ellie Bishop. Now Season 23 has resumed on the 2026 TV schedule, and Wickersham’s guest appearance on “Her” brought some long-awaited answers about what she’s been up to the last few years, as well as more information about what was going on between her and Nick Torres. Additionally, CinemaBlend learned from actors Brian Dietzen and Diona Reasonover how it felt to reunite with their former co-star for the Season 23 midseason return.
In the midst of talking with Dietzen and Reasonover about their new podcast NCIS: Partners & Probies, including how the former once voiced his concerns about how Jimmy Palmer was being written, I asked what it was like for them to perform with Emily Wickersham for the first time since she exited in the NCIS Season 18 finale. Dietzen started off by saying:
Oh, it’s awesome. It’s so great. People always ask what makes NCIS successful, and I always have the same answer, which is we have a really great chosen family. And to have a family member come back to the house and spend some time with us… What’s made Emily and the character of Bishop so beloved by the fans just returns again, and she still just brings that same wonderful energy. it was so great to spend time with her.
In “Her,” it was revealed that Ellie Bishop spent the last five years in deep cover running a covert U.S. cyber team. Thankfully, it’d been cleared up at this point that she purposefully disgraced herself in order to pull this off, leaving her reputation intact. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of her team being attacked during a mission in Ukraine six months previously, Bishop was forced to go on the run and had been stealing Department of Defense data to figure out why her team was ambushed and who sold them out.
If you weren’t able to watch “Her” live, you can stream the episode with your Paramount+ subscription, but these events ultimately led to Bishop seeking help from her former teammates. While there was some friction between her and Torres at first (more on that later), and she and Jessica Knight barely knew each other, everyone else was excited to see Bishop again, especially Kasie. Here’s what Diona Reasonover told me about reuniting with Emily Wickersham:
There’s a Tina Fey quote from Bossy Pants where she sees Amy Poehler for the first time, and she thinks to herself, ‘Yay, my friend is here!’ And that’s the exact feeling I had when Emily stepped on stage. I was like, ‘My friend is back!’ It felt like no time has passed, and it really did feel like my friend is back.
It was also revealed in “Her” that Ellie Bishop and Nick Torres’ complicated relationship went a lot deeper than we initially presumed. The Season 18 finale was not the first time they kissed; in fact, they had been secretly dating for an unknown period of time, which makes it more understandable why he was so hurt when she burned her identity and left her life at NCIS behind. Bishop also admitted to Torres this episode that she didn’t tell him she was leaving because she was afraid he would have asked her to stay and that she would have said yes.
The good news is that Ellie Bishop and Nick Torres parted on good terms at the end of “Her,” though he decided to stay behind rather than join her and her husband (they’re only married for cover purposes) to learn who their traitor teammate was working for and warn other teams like theirs that they may be targeted. But the door is easily open for Emily Wickersham to return someday, so hopefully that can be arranged in NCIS Season 24. Meanwhile, there’s still a lot in Season 23 to keep fans occupied Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, including the show’s milestone 500th episode.
