NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 5 brought betrayal to center stage. Jonah revealing his true intentions for being locked away in the Supermax Prison shocked me to my core. He was supposed to be one of the good guys, but instead, the missing Secretary-General of Interpol was teaming up with an Interpol agent, Martine. I knew she was a dirty cop, but I never expected her to be working with Jonah and using Henry as a cover. I believe they used Henry as a pawn to draw Tony and Ziva out to someone they trusted. Even when Henry broke Tony’s trust, they still wanted to trust each other despite the messy situation.
The betrayal leaked its way through until the final minutes, when Tali called her parents in a panic. Bad men were breaking into the safe house. After escaping Jonah, Martine, and Lazar, and leaving Henry’s fate in the balance, Tony and Ziva speed towards saving their daughter and Sophie.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 6 revisits an impactful safehouse memory
The episode begins with a heartwarming family memory that quickly turns scary. Tony, Ziva, and Tali park in front of a cozy cabin in the woods. Tali races in ahead of her parents to explore their German vacation spot. Her parents walk in seconds later to find her holding a gun she found under a table. Tony immediately yells at Ziva, realizing she brought them to one of her safe houses and missed a gun while clearing the cabin.
It’s heartbreaking to see a small 7-year-old Tali peaking in the window at her parents fighting about how to raise her after Ziva realizes Tony doesn’t want their daughter to grow up like they did. The scene flashes to September 2025, 12-year-old Tali walks into the safe house as those memories slam into her. Seeing the safe house through Tali’s eyes hurt. She saw her parents fighting a lot because Ziva is over paranoid and has weapons within reach.
Sophie and Tali must stay hidden
Tali knows the drill to not have contact with the outside world, but Sophie assures her her parents know what they are doing. Tali looks under the table where the gun was five years ago, and says, “sure they do.” She may love her parents, but she knows they have a complicated way of getting things done. But despite all of that, they would do anything for their little girl.
Five days into staying hidden, Sophie hasn’t heard from Claudette in a while since their phone call was interrupted by men breaking into her apartment early in the case. As Sophie mops, Tali pulls her outside for a birthday surprise, complete with a banner and cake. Tali confirms that Sophie and Claudette are dating, which cracks me up, since Sophie was so surprised she knew from her being sad about not hearing from Claudette. It’s no shock because Tali is the daughter of two former NCIS agents who were paid to know secrets.
A swarm of bees ruins the celebration and sends them back inside, where Tali finds a watch that reminds her of that vacation again. As they play a game on the watch, Ziva seems upset about the screen time. This prompts a young Tali to ask Tony why. To make her feel better about the upsetting situation, he quotes the famous Lilo and Stitch Ohana quote. Again, despite all troubles, they love their daughter more than anything. Three days later, she’s having a conversation with her parents, calling them out for being at a wedding, and they hang up quickly to avoid answering. Tali is a smart girl, and she knows something’s up while she’s stuck hiding in a safe house.
Sophie and Tali’s location is compromised
Tali walks down the stairs on day 9 with a red stain on her sheets, prompting Sophie to go to the store for supplies. As she watches her leave from an upstairs window, she pulls out a bottle of tomato juice, revealing that she pulled a fast one on Sophie to get her out of the house. Tali runs down the stairs and uses the charging port to charge Tony’s smartwatch. Lying to her protector is probably the wrong move, so I’m holding my breath as the episode catches up to the timeline from episode 5.
The next day, Sophie walks back into the house after cringing at Tali reading an adult romance book she found on a shelf. But she’s not actually reading; she’s hiding the smartwatch and playing the game she used to play with her dad. A happy memory in the midst of all the bad, but it ends abruptly when a car pulls into the driveway. In a panic, she jumps down from the treehouse and runs to Sophie. Tali realizes no one’s supposed to know about this safe house as she tells Sophie someone’s here. Bad men are on the property as Tali calls her parents in a panic, but there’s no time as they hurry to the bunker as the men enter the safe house.
Tony, Ziva, and Claudette are on their way to Tali and Sophie with no idea what they are walking into or if the men hurt their loved ones. I miss the NCIS agent days, but I love this new era of new friends, their daughter, and working with each other. Even in the face of the unknown, they focus on what’s ahead and do their very best for their daughter, while trusting Sophie with Tali’s safety.
As they drive towards Tali, Ziva and Tony unravel due to all the pain and loss. Ziva asks if Tony’s okay, and the first thing he does is call out Ziva for never liking Henry. She was jealous of how much Tony has the ability to trust people, Henry, and Ziva can’t. She apologizes, but Tony still looks so hurt. At this point, no one knows if Henry’s alive or dead from the stabbing and shooting he endured from Jonah. Everyone’s fate hangs in the balance.
The smartwatch accident
Sophie’s trip to the store didn’t compromise their location; Tali charging the watch did. She didn’t connect to the internet, so she’s confused. Sophie explains that the smartwatch is a cellular model that started pinging cell towers with Tony’s old number once it began charging. That feeling that the watch would lead to disaster was right, and I hate that for them. Things always have to get worse before they get better. As they solve the mystery, the bad men discover a panic room and begin searching for a way in.
As Sophie is trying to get cell service, she screws open a crawl space only big enough for Tali. She instructs her to call the police if and when she finds service. Unfortunately, the men outside guarding the safe house hear Tali and the phone pinging with notifications. One of the men steps into a rabbit hole and limps away. But the fight isn’t over.
A wasp stung Tali in the crawl space, and then she brought in one to the bunker that stings Sophie, who’s allergic. Her bag with her EpiPen is in the cabin. Tali, feeling guilt, confesses she lied about her period, but there’s no time for blame. Unfortunately, the emergency kit doesn’t have a working EpiPen, so Sophie has to hurry to get Tali out, even though Tali doesn’t want to leave her.
Tali walks out of the bunker, and distracts the man sitting in the cabin. Sophie struggles in the bunker as she watches the camera to see if Tali escapes. But Tali can’t leave her family behind. She grabs the EpiPen and hides. Sophie creates a distraction, and Tali runs out of the living room and into the bunker as Sophie collapses from the wasp sting. Tali brings Sophie back in the nick of time, and reminds her that no one gets left behind.
Do Sophie and Tali escape the safe house?
As Sophie is preparing a gun, Tali has a flashback to watching Ziva put the gun she found under the table in the bunker cabinet. Tali, without hesitation, questions her mom. She knows they don’t chase bad guys anymore, so she wonders why her mom wants to be so prepared. Ziva explains that the guns makes her feel safe because that’s all she’s known since a young age. But she acknowledges that nothing good came from weapons and that she doesn’t want Tali to grow up like she did. During that brief flashback, Ziva tells Tali that she is smart and can get herself out of anything. So, they may not have wanted her to grow up like Ziva, but they taught her how to take care of what’s important.
The bad men find the outside entrance to the bunker and throw tear gas into it. Sophie and Tali put on breathing masks, because they are prepared for anything. They attack back with strobe lights flashing in the cabin, and they shoot their way out. Sophie gets caught inside and Tali has to fight a man outside. Tali gets in the driver seat of the car and runs over the man that attached her. Sophie finally escapes and climbs in the car and takes the wheel as they are shot at. Tires pop. Sophie shoots the leader of the pack as Tali stays hidden in the car. Sophie and the leader face off in a hand-to-hand combat that Tali can see from the car. Claudette gets there just in time with a shot that allows Sophie to get the underhand on the leader. Tony and Ziva finally arrive. Everyone is reunited!!
In Italy, Tony and Ziva talk to Tali about this not being the kind of life they wanted for Tali (a life of running from bad men). They are going to send her away to keep her safe. Ziva confesses to Tony after Tali walks away, that she thinks she’ll be safe with them, but Tony says no one’s safe with them. My heart hurts for them. It’s bad when Tony’s paranoid about keeping people safe around them. He feels like no one will ever be safe around them because of what happened to Henry and how the bad men got to Sophie and Tali.
Jonah’s plan becomes clear
Ziva and Tony walk into the house to find Boris and Claudette listening to what happened to the drone from the reporter on TV: “Reigning Fire Peacekeeping Solutions recovers an experimental drone originally thought to have been destroyed in a factory fire in France. They didn’t find their missing drone; it flew back to them.” Tony thinks it was anticlimactic that it flew back without blowing anything up. Boris calls it a Trojan horse because to run diagnostics, they had to plug in the malware into the system. Now Jonah has access to Reigning Fire. Claudette discovered that Lazar is the GOAT of all hackers. The hospital, the chip, Reigning Fire, and Lazar all connect back to Aaron Graves (the most dangerous man in the world). The next step is for them to find out why Jonah wants to be involved with Graves.
Jonah and Martine meet on a park bench in Paris, France, looking all mysterious. Jonah gives Martine a gift as an apology, it’s the bag from the wedding scene that Fruzsi found 9.4 malware device in the lining. Martine confirms that President Talabi was upset about Henry. She has to submit a written statement about what happened. Jonah says the President is “covering her ass, that she’s got a dead agent, and no one in custody to pin it on.” Martine assures Jonah that when they are done with Graves, they’ll make sure the President has DiNozzo and David.
Is Henry really gone?
The phone call Jonah gets confirms that Galimard was the leader that Sophie fought and killed. To Jonah’s dismay, Tali got away and is with her parents. He lies to Martine that it’s the President when his caller ID says otherwise, and the male on the phone says he’s not a ma’am and wants his payment. Lazar hated being lied to, and now it seems that Jonah is lying to Martine. This man is twisted in all kinds of ways, wielding too much power. To keep the lie up, Jonah suggests they turn their focus back to DiNozzo and David while their emotions are high from saving their daughter.
Jonah isn’t wrong; emotions are at an all-time high right now as Tony grieves his friend. Tony telling Tali about how her Uncle Henry went out heroically reminds me of how he handled Kate’s death in NCIS season 2. He cares so deeply about everyone who enters his life. It breaks me that he had to tell that to his daughter and see her comfort him. I was hoping we’d learn a different fate for Henry after discovering he was being used as a pawn in a larger game. While Tony’s relieved they saved Tali, he’s broken over losing his friend.
NCIS: Tony and Ziva airs on Paramount+ on Thursdays.