Emily Wickersham as Eleanor “Ellie” Bishop — 'NCIS' Season 23 Episode 9 "Heen and Nature" - CBSNCIS fans got quite the holiday gift with its Season 23 fall finale: the return of a fan-forite character. Viewers were happy and excited to see what’s next after Emily Wickersham‘s shocking appearance as Ellie Bishop at the end of the episode, though she’s not just here for a visit.
Knight (Katrina Law) had been itching to get an assignment as part of her new role with NCIS Elite, and it was at the end of the episode, “Heen and Nature,” that Director Vance (Rocky Carroll) called her to let her know she had her first target: Bishop. Because of that, no one else could know, including Knight’s partner, Torres (Wilmer Valderrama), Bishop’s former partner and love interest. What Knight didn’t know was Bishop was watching the team at the cemetery — for Parker’s (Gary Cole) mother’s burial, after he got closure on what happened to her and who Lily is — but it was unclear if she was there watching Knight knowing she was targeting her or just looking at her old team.
Wickersham was certainly feeling the love from fans after her return, and on Thursday, December 18, she shared a screenshot of their messages along with her own written over it to her Instagram Stories. “All these comments are so sweet!” she wrote.
Emily Wickersham/Instagram
The official NCIS Instagram also, following the episode, shared a video of Wickersham on the show’s set, in Kasie’s (Diona Reasonover) lab. “SHE’S BACK,” is written across the post. See it below.
When it comes to bringing back familiar faces, “you’re always wondering, do they want to come back? Do we want them back? We wanted her back, and once we started hearing that she might be interested, we were like, OK, well, we can start really seriously thinking about the things that we’ve been doing,” executive producer Steven D. Bindertold TV Insider. “And one of the things that’s going on with the show is we’re exploring some relationships between our characters and some interesting mixing and matching. And we thought bringing Bishop in for Torres at this particular moment would upend an apple cart that’s coming down the pike after this episode airs and put a very interesting spin on it. Plus, he never got the closure that he felt he needed. And it was an abrupt departure. I think the details of it, why Bishop did what she did, become a little more clear in this episode, but he’s a fully-fledged human and this is a moment that he’s been wanting to he and we were happy to finally he an opportunity to give it to him.”
Wickersham was last seen on NCIS in the Season 18 finale, and at the time, Bishop had to lee as a disgraced NCIS agent and only told Torres she’d be gone “too long.” Now, she’s back, and still “in that same world,” Binder said, teasing, “She’s been in a very serious life-or-death situation. She’s seen some very scary stuff and some very hairy stuff. She’s not the same person that [she was when] she left. She is a very different person. The world has beaten her up, and maybe a little too much, let’s put it that way. So, friends are enemies, enemies are friends in the world she’s in, and that’s how she views the world now, I think. And when she comes back, to people who were previously her friends, we may he to wonder where her head’s really at.”
Are you happy to he Emily Wickersham back as Bishop? What are you hoping to see next? Let us know in the comments section below.
NCIS, Midseason Return, Tuesday, February 24, 2026, 8/7c, CBS
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