Tony And Ziva’s Relationship Timeline Explained

Contains spoilers for “NCIS: Tony and Ziva”

The romance between the wisecracking Tony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and the straitlaced but sly Ziva David (Cote De Pablo) has always been one of the most beloved and storied relationships on “NCIS.” While some fans have been frustrated by the weird fact that so much of the development in their union has happened off-screen, what has managed to make it so compelling is the actors’ chemistry — and the almost star-crossed nature of their partnership, which keeps viewers tuning in to find out where it all goes. They have literally defied death to be together, but have since resisted staying a couple, even though they share a daughter. When “Tony and Ziva” begins, they haven’t been romantically connected for some time, but the spark is clearly still there. Whether that feels like bad fan fiction or not is up to the beholder.

How did Tony and Ziva’s romance get started? When did they first fall in love, and what obstacles have kept them apart for all of these years? Follow us as we explore the radical ups and downs they’ve dealt with on the road to having their own family, business, and shared life — and why they might be melded together in holy wedlock before it’s all over.

Tony and Ziva don’t meet for the first time until Season 3, when Ziva is brought in to replace Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander) after she’s murdered during the Season 2 finale. Since Kate and Tony already had something of an attraction that was chopped short by her tragic death, Tony wasn’t looking for love. While Ziva and Tony are clearly attracted to each other at first sight, she isn’t fond of his attitude and his tendency to lean on pop culture jokes. He, meanwhile, thinks she’s far too serious and reserved. The former Mossad agent settles into Gibbs’ (Mark Harmon) team soon after, and the banter between her and Tony flies thick and heavy. They’re off to the races after that, bickering all the while, and circumstances will keep throwing them together until they are forced to face their feelings for one another.

One prime example of their simmering attraction occurs in the Season 3 episode “Under Covers,” where they play a married couple for a sting Gibbs has put together to ferret out the truth about a married spy pairing. A counterintelligence team is also watching them, so Ziva and Tony spend plenty of time snuggling up in bed to convince the people surveilling them that they’re truly lovers, and even simulate a few sex acts, per the statements made by the other surveillance team. Naturally, it’s all a cover — at this stage in their relationship they can’t stand each other, and Ziva “accidentally” squeezes a little too hard while giving Tony a massage. But the seeds of affection are planted and will continue to bloom as they flirt over the course of the following season.

During Season 4, Tony temporarily takes over for Gibbs and finds himself defending Ziva against accusations that she killed a terrorist the FBI was trying to keep alive and in controlled custody. During the fracas, Mossad Officer Michael Bashan (Eli Danker) accuses Ziva of secretly fraternizing with Tony. He’d been watching her on the orders of her Mossad head father Eli and notes that Tony has been coming in and out of her apartment. She neither denies nor confirms the claim and is eventually declared innocent by all the involved parties.

By the time Season 5 rolls around, Ziva can give back to Tony as good as she gets, and she’s anything but cowed by his forward manner or his flirtation. That’s why it’s fascinating to see her so rattled when Tony goes undercover to pretend to date Jeanne Benoit (Scottie Thompson) for the majority of the season to get to her baddie of a dad. She knows the relationship is fake, but clearly doesn’t like seeing Tony with another woman. She gets her turn to make Tony jealous during Season 6, when she tangles up with Mossad Officer Michael Rivkin (Merik Tadros). While there was backstage dissent about whether or not Michael and Ziva’s relationship was genuine at first, they are seen on-screen in bed together. But Michael isn’t the best guy, and appears to be doing his level best to turn Ziva against her team. Unfortunately for Ziva, Michael was not being honest with her — and he wouldn’t survive past Season 7. 

Tony begins to accuse Ziva of being loyal to Michael and Mossad instead of the U.S. and, by extension, NCIS, and tensions ratchet up until Tony physically confronts Michael during the Season 6 finale. He accuses him of murdering a terrorist and an ICE agent, and while he tries to arrest them, they fight. Tony is forced to kill the drunken Michael in self-defense, breaking Ziva’s heart and setting her against him. During the Season 6 finale, she rejoins Mossad in a quest to clear out her mind and quell the conflict in her heart, during which she ends up captured and tortured in Somalia. Ziva is then temporarily presumed dead, and not for the last time. 

As Season 7 opens, Tony is looking for retribution regarding Ziva’s so-called death. He is captured and tortured himself during the episode “Truth or Consequences,” and injected with a truth serum. When he learns Ziva is alive, he moves heaven and earth to rescue her. After she’s safe, when she asks him why he’s gone to such extreme lengths to bring her home safe, he says, “I couldn’t live without you, I guess.” The truth serum may or may not have something to do with his honesty. She eventually kisses him on the cheek as a form of thanks as they head home, and he vows his friendly devotion once again.

To say that this experience opens the floor for them emotionally is an understatement. In “Jet Lag,” they find themselves in Paris on a mission and discover there’s only one suite for them to share. They come away with conflicting stories about which of them slept on the couch and which of them took the bed, causing fervent speculation in the team and among fans whether or not they had sex. Even the actors were divided on the subject, with Michael Weatherly maintaining nothing happened and Cote de Pablo hinting she thinks it did. But if fans were hoping for answers, they’d have to wait a few more seasons.

With their relationship apparently consummated (albeit offscreen), one could assume that Tony and Ziva’s tortured connection might get a little bit of breathing room to bloom into something fans could rely upon. Instead, Season 8 introduces new love interests for each of them — Ziva began dating Ray Cruz (Enrique Murciano), a federal agent, while Tony began seeing team newbie Erica Jane “EJ” Barrett (Sarah Jane Morris). While both new couples seemed to be going somewhere for a while, ultimately both Ray and EJ leave town without getting permanent commitments from Ziva and Tony. Ziva comes the closest, taking a promise ring box from Ray that was ultimately as empty as any vow of togetherness they might make. 

Tony and Ziva, however, continue to march onward together. Trapped together during Season 9’s season finale, “Till Death to Us Part,” the loyalty between the couple seems utterly paramount, as they refuse to let each other be blown up by a bomb. They cling to one another as they escape the building and survive the explosion. This would prove to be just the beginning for these two, as Season 10 finally provided fans with a major turning point in their relationship — only to result in some severely tough times for their love story when Cote de Pablo left the series.

During Season 10, Tony and Ziva would finally start getting closer and acting like two people attracted to one another. During “Shell Shocked (Part II),” Tony makes Ziva a CD filled with opera music when he learns she goes to hear librettos on the anniversary of her sister Tali’s death every year, but can’t score tickets to DC’s opera. Tony even tries to get her tickets, to no avail. When her father is killed, Tony is a close, supportive force in Ziva’s life. In the episode “Berlin,” where they head to Germany to find Eli David’s killer, they share a dance, and he grabs and holds her hand during a difficult moment. That’s another huge step forward that definitely hints that romance is on the menu at last.

Then Tony learns that she slept with an old friend while she was in Israel dealing with the fallout from her father’s death, and he feels betrayed. They reaffirm their friendship, leaving things ambiguous at the end of Season 10. But then Cote de Pablo announced her departure from “NCIS” before the start of Season 11. The show proceeded to send Ziva on the run when a childhood friend decides to kill her in revenge for Ziva murdering Ari (Rudolf Martin), the villain both Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo would love to have on “NCIS: Tony and Ziva.” Tony and Ziva finally share a true romantic kiss in “Past, Present and Future”, the best Tony and Ziva episode of “NCIS.” But it would be the last time they’d see each other for a very long time, as Ziva would soon go into hiding and leave the team. Fans would eventually get confirmation of their connection — in the saddest way possible.

For two seasons, Tony proceeded to focus mainly on work. But at the conclusion of Season 13, “Family First,” he would receive the devastating news that Ziva is presumed dead in a bombing. And even more shocking, that she gave birth to their daughter during her time on the run. While that confirms that Tony and Ziva had sex before saying goodbye, it’s quite a devastating gesture for fans who love them. Tony has no idea how to handle the news that Ziva raised their daughter alone for two years without telling him. Apparently she wanted to tell him, but wasn’t sure he’d welcome the news of being a dad. “Then she never knew me at all,” Tony retorts. 

But Ziva definitely told Tali about him, as the little girl is able to point to and identify Tony as “abba” (father in Hebrew) in a picture. Tony vows to dedicate his life to raising his kid and leaves “NCIS.” For three seasons the situation would remain dormant, with Tony happily taking care of his daughter alone offscreen and working in civilian security and tech jobs, with him only being mentioned in passing by his old team. But by Season 16, the truth about Ziva’s fate would be revealed, ultimately giving Tony, Tali and Ziva a happy ending, though one that seems to have been temporary.  

Unshockingly, the rumors of Ziva David’s death were greatly exaggerated. During Season 16’s “She,” the gang begins investigating a cold case related to Ziva, and the deeper they dig, the more they learn about her. “Tiva” shippers do get a few scraps in the process of this information excavation; in one of her diaries, she writes of Tony, “my heart saw him as if for the first time and I knew I could not live without him.” Elle Bishop (Emily Wickersham) figures out that Ziva’s alive during the investigation, but she begs Elle to keep quiet to protect her family. She also tries to stop Gibbs from digging into the case, but it’s too late and he ends up in trouble.

During Season 17’s “Out of the Darkness,” the audience catches up with Ziva as she works to save Gibbs, It turns out she faked her death and went into hiding to protect her daughter and Tony, both of whom she yearns to be with. The typically cool-under-pressure Ziva has begun taking anti-anxiety medication under the weight of it all. With the help of Gibbs and Bishop as well as the rest of the team, she brings the organization that’s been after her to their knees. But she tells Gibbs there’s one more thing she has to do before rejoining Tali and Tony in Paris. In “The North Pole”, she finally kills Mira Sahar Azam (Louise Barnes), the woman who has been chasing after her since Season 11. She helps Gibbs track down Sahar’s son Phineas (Jack Fisher) during “In The Wind” before meeting with Tali and Tony in France, where they proceed to get on with the business of living.

Tony, Tali and Ziva have been living happily ever after together since then, but those who try “NCIS: Tony and Ziva” are about to learn that not everything has been smooth sailing since then.

When audiences meet up with Tony and Ziva again in their Paramount+ off-CBS spin-off, we learn that they separated and are not united romantically. But they have been living in Paris, splitting childrearing duties while getting on with their civilian lives. Tony runs a cybersecurity firm while Ziva runs a private school for the offspring of the world’s elite diplomats. Therapy and determination have kept them a cohesive parenting unit, eternally protective of little Tali (Isla Gie), but there’s definitely a fly in the ointment. 

Everything changes when a cyberattack swipes millions of euros from an account Tony’s security firm is supposed to be monitoring. Tony is framed for the crime and Interpol is soon on his tail, but it appears to be the fault of a pen drive entered into a computer by a mysterious source. Ziva finds herself party to the situation when Tali is targeted by the unknown forces from the couple’s mutual past who wish to destroy them. With the whole world after them, they take Tali and head out on the run. Forced to face their demons and a daughter who does not entirely believe them, those banked romantic sparks between them suddenly pop to life, adding another big wrinkle to their supposedly-over romantic union.