WMG / NCIS

As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Abby's adoption was illegal

White female babies without disabilities are the most in-demand by potential adoptive parents in the U.S., as well as the rarest to be up for adoption. Abby's also gifted, so she was the Holy Grail of adoptable children. Additionally, the adoption process in general tends to be long and expensive. The Americans with Disabilities Act was enacted in 1990, and Abby was more or less Kelly Gibbs' age in 1989 (the teddy bear).

How come they gave Abby, a healthy white baby girl (even without showing her giftedness because baby), to deaf parents in a time before the ADA? Even today prospective parents with disabilities face challenges for adoption. Surely in the regular way back then they would've been denied the possibility to adopt, or they would've been given either a deaf child, a harder to place child (due to race or age or other factors), or a child that is both; and they would've placed Abby with a wealthier family without disabilities.

That's coupled with the fact that even though Abby has progressive views that probably also came from her family, yet her parents died without even insinuating that she was anything but their biological child, and the fact that she didn't know her brother at all makes me think there was something not right in the adoption process (think black market or some sort of corruption going on).

Ziva will be killed off in the season finale

Or she could end up killing Bodnar. That could potentially piss off quite a few people, SecNav included.

As Cote De Pablo is in contract negotiations this year, her departure is a possibility. The Bodnar arc would allow for her to be written off in some way.

None of the main cast died. However, Ziva, Tony and McGee resigned, their ultimate fates unrevealed until season 11, and Gibbs is off on a sniper mission of some kind.

Unfortunately, the OP was right about Cote De Pablo leaving. At least she's been confirmed to do several guest appearances so it looks like she won't be leaving the show in a pine box.

Right WMG, wrong season finale...

Abby is Death

Gibbs is the incarnation of Tyr

Norse God of Justice? It explains so much, including his Offscreen Teleportation and what he does with the damn boats.

Each Member of Team Gibbs is out of Norse Mythology

Gibbs: Odin, natch. The Allfather is the Team Dad, his spear that never misses is a sniper rifle these days, his omniscient gut shows his allseeing foresight, and besides: who else could be THAT much of a badass.

Abby: Freya, she's the team's heart and hospitality and spends all her off-hours doing charity work for things like Habitat for Humanity. And no one but the Goddess of Magic could do forensics quite like her, all by herself.

DiNozzo: Loki, before he went to the darkside he was Thor's partner in crime: clearly why they're all being human is part of a trick to avoid repeating the same patterns again. He's silver-tongued, tricky, and Vitriolic Best Buds with...

Kate: Thor, The Protector of Midguard was assigned to protect the President and, aside from Gibbs, she was probably the toughest character before Ziva appeared. Kate did not die, she just went back to Asgard.

Ziva: Deadly dangerous, cold, beautiful, and her radio codename is usually Archangel. Do we even NEED to say Valkyrie? Chooser of the Slain indeed.

McGee: Bragi: Inspiration Poetry and Divination, his presence is the reason Everything Is Online. He's even a famous writer. And you know how for ages he had to go get the coffee? Sounds like mead of inspiration to me...

Ducky: a tricky one, Vakyrie is already covered for psychopomps and Hel was only goddess of the dishonered dead. But given he is the wise one in the basement, Gibbs confidant, and has to do with the handling of death, let's go with Mimir, guardian of the well of fate.

• Perhaps Jenny is Frigg, who allegedly knows the destiny of all, but never unveils it, but occasionally drops hints and perhaps her warnings to various characters were much deeper and insightful than anyone realizes, and like Kate she merely went back to Asgard.

• Alternately, Ziva could be Njord, who was came to live in Asgard after a long war, and who eventually became a trusted member of Asgard.

Jenny Sheppard's plot line is not over.

Jenny was killed off, true; but we never found out the story behind her father. Isn't odd that, just as she was looking into him and had evidence that he was still alive, someone from her past magically finds her and kills her? The timing is suspicious. Whatever she was involved in isn't over yet.

• And we never see her dead body.
• This was apparently a request on Lauren Holly's part - her sons watch the show - but that doesn't mean they can't use it for plot purposes.
• Thus, since we didn't definitively see her dead body, and we didn't see how Vance, Ziva, and Tony processed the scene before Gibbs arrived, perhaps there was a cover-up. It's not hard to imagine that Jenny wanted to fake her own death so that she could do her own investigating without the burden of another investigation into her activities as director. Perhaps moments after "Judgment Day Part I" faded out, Jenny sat up and explained things to Ziva and Tony, and gave them a big SHHH.
  • And Mike Franks is the only person who knows Jenny's current whereabouts. Maybe.
  • Didn't Jenny have a terminal illness and not long to live anyway? It was stated several times during that season.
  • Ducky's in on it too! Because Jenny knew she couldn't hide her preparations for going underground from Gibbs, she distracted him with pretending she was dying of a fatal illness. We never DO find out what she's supposed to be dying from, and Ducky would have handled the autopsy personally like he did for Kate so no one else at NCIS would actually know.
  • So, basically, what we have here is NCIS as a whole creating a conspiracy and leaving Gibbs out of the loop. Surely he'll be calm and understanding when he finds out.
  • This has been the plot of many a Jibbs fanfic. No, he doesn't take it too well.
  • Jenny's dead, and that's her eyeball. Now tell me, is that her father's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, or Jeanne Benoit's?
• We do see her body, in the reflection of some glass. She's dead.

Gibbs is secretly the (somewhat) mortal son of Chuck Norris

NCIS has a serious mole problem

We've caught one mole, but there have been several times when various other agencies have taken long hard looks at NCIS for moles, both before and after the resolution of the 'mole plotline.' There's still at least one mole in the organization.

• It's not a heavily publicized federal agency In-Universe. That might make it easier for a mole to get top secret intel once they burrowed in.
• And now the Los Angeles branch has been compromised: someone found out Callen's real identity and copied all of their case files from their mainframe. They seriously need to update their security protocols.
• Well there was that whole Riley McAllister thing. He wasn't exactly a mole but he was definitely a traitor and he was there for ages.
• There must still be a mole, because in "Pyramid" Tony is given a mission to flush out a suspected mole.

In the last season or two of NCIS, the show will move away from its 'realistic' take, and feature a shadowy organization that was behind much of the earlier plot twists, including Jenny's death and Mossad agents tendencies to go rogue.

We'll only find out about it after Eli David is rousted from Mossad and the agency falls under the evil organizations power. Said organization is probably connected to whoever Jenny Sheppard's father works for.

Rivkin's apology just before he died in Aliyah was not for dying, but for betraying Ziva.

And he was drinking so much for the last few episodes of that season because he did not like betraying her.

Allison Hart didn't show up because Bell sent her; she got Bell off on her own.

She'll turn out to be related to Shannon or one of Gibbs' early cases somehow, and is bent on revenge. But will instead wind up in love with him.

• I second this theory. She seemed much too personally pissed at Gibbs' entire method of investigating for it just to be because her boss told her to.
• And now that she's showing up in cases that have nothing to do with her boss...
  • As a follow up to the above. Allyson Hart will have a 'My God, What Have I Done?' moment in the season finale or in the build up to it, and end up working for NCIS next season. She'll be the Cuddy Character to counter-balance Gibbs.

Tony was once a foster brother to Temperance Brennan

Seems to be a popular fanfiction idea. Tony has mentioned a sister multiple times, despite being reminded he's an only child. Also, Bones was in the foster system for what seems to be quite a while, it's not impossible that at some point she was in the care of the DiNozzo family. Besides, the DiNozzos are rich, they could probably handle a foster kid or two.

• There is another link between both series: Booth is the nephew of Gibbs. Based on the fact that Gibbs' father and Booth's grandfather are played by Ralph Waite playing practically the same role. Gibbs can't be Booth's father because Booth used to be beaten by his dad and Gibbs would rather kill himself than hurt a kid.
  • Gibbs is an only child, so Booth can't be his nephew, but if Jackson has a twin brother (Booth's Gramps) than they could be cousins
    • They don't talk about Gibbs' brother, due to the abusive bit
  • Also, that warehouse manager from "One Shot, One Kill" is the long lost twin brother of Jack Hodgins. Sibling Yin-Yang is in effect because the warehouse manager has a lot more faith in the FBI than Hodgins does.
    • This crossover would have to reveal that Cam has been in the witness relocation program, since she used to be NCIS agent Cassie Yates...
• If FOX and CBS ever team up they could explore this under the guise of a murder at a Mystery Writers convention. After all both Brennan and McGee are writers. Heck, ABC could get in on the act and add Castle.
  • I dunno about Castle, but Bones and NCIS seem to be just begging for a Crossover.
  • I'd vote to throw Castle in the mix. They could be doing a joint book signing, which is how they meet, and then... Yeah, I'm going to stop before this stops being a theory and turns into a fanfic outline.
    • Feel free. Meanwhile, this troper will simply sit in awe of the potential of David Boreanaz, Mark Harmon, and Nathan Fillion all leading an investigation together.
  • I actually saw a prompt like that on the BBC Sherlock kinkmeme, with the addition of John Watson, of course. Sadly, it was prompted over a year ago and never filled.
• Well, since Angela's dad recently appeared on CSI: Miami...
  • By that argument, one could claim that both CSI: Miami and Bones are non-fiction, as Billy Gibbons exists in Real Life too.

It's the same boat.

Whenever Gibbs finishes building it, he takes it apart and starts over. Why does he do this? Because he uses boat building in much the same way as other people would use model trains, or bonsai trees. It acts as a way for him to work off the stresses of the day.

• Where does the wood go?
  • Storage.
• Apparently the one named Diane just got lit on fire.
• Jossed by the fact that he gave the Kelly to Mike Franks.
  • So he gives away his finished boats (or, if he can't find a person to take it, throws it away) because he has no interest in it after he finishes the construction?

NCIS-LA's missing agent Dom is actually a spy/Manipulative Bastard.

The kidnapping is just a cover for him to return to whoever he ''really'' works for (they had to be really realistic just in case his car was bugged), and the next time we see him he'll be gloating over the Evil Plan he's pulled over the whole team.

• Or, if he's not already a spy, if/when he's rescued he'll be suffering from a bad case of Brainwashed and Crazy, More than Mind Control, or possibly just some Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• This entire theory is Jossed...* sniff*

NCIS is actually an alternate universe for the Stargate-verse.

Let's face it, the sheer number of former Stargate actors appearing in the show cannot be an accident.

Kate actually ascended.

She's not ascended! She's a reaper.

• She's not a Reaper! She's immortal.
• She's not immortal! She's the Undead.
• She's not Undead! She's actually dead.
• She's not Angelic! She's still dead, though.
• She's not that dead! She's still very dead, though.
• She's not even that dead! But she ''is'' dead, though.
• She's not that dead either! She's just a little dead.
• She's very much dead. She's, luckily for her, mostly dead.
• She's not even really quite dead! Just a little.
• She's been dead for ages! But she never let that stop her.
• She's not dead and she never had been! Because she was never alive in the first place.
• She regenerated after being buried and escaped from her grave!
  • She regenerated into Ziva!
  • Ziva then regenerated into Bishop!
• She didn't die at all because she's been in witness protection and got a job as a medical examiner.
• She's not in witness protection, she was thrown through a time wound into the future!

Abby's going to die in the season finale.

Something major is going to happen, anyway.

• I personally think she'll die at some point.
  • Not that it's going to stop her...

Abby's right.

Gibbs really IS a bit psychic.

Gibbs's Rule Number 34 is the same as ours.

Because... because... because Why not?!

• Because McGee would be the only one to get the reference, except maybe Abby. Not that Tony would need to get the reference.
  • Who said it had to be a reference on Gibbs's part?

Tim is bi-curious.

Tony seems so adamant!

• Hmmm, I wonder why?

Gibbs got the boat out of his basement by using magic.

There is no other solution - even Abby remained stumped.

• He went the Salem Academy, the American magic school in the Potterverse.
  • No, Gibbs broke the bottle. Just like those ships in bottles....Wait...that would mean that Gibbs took his house down. Yeah, it's not the other kind of bottle breaking that is revolved around ships.
    • Alternatively, Gibbs fixed the boat with his most piercing glare and simply intimidated it out of the basement.
    • Another theory I've seen is that he's a former companion of The Doctor and every time he finishes a boat he calls his old friend up and they use the TARDIS to get it out.
    • A fanfic (''Famous Last Words'') provides a more mundane solution (for a certain definition of "mundane"): he uses explosives to blow out the concrete floor of his garage, creating a hole into his basement, and uses a rented hydraulic lift to raise it out of the basement through that hole.

Gibbs's mother was a redhead.

Hence his attraction to them. Also, his daughter Kelly was a redhead, so she had to get the redhead gene from both parents. Jackson Gibbs did not have red hair, as seen in the episode "Heartland", so it had to be a grandparent from one side of the family at least.

• His mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers. All it actually requires is having a redhead SOMEWHERE in the family tree.
  • Perhaps, but this theory is that it was his mom.
    • As of the 200th episode, we know know for fact that Gibbs' mother was a redhead, and a pretty one at that.

Gibbs' mother was deaf.

He knows sign language for no readily apparent reason. We know his father isn't deaf. There's never been any sign of any other close family members even existing. Seems to make sense.

Further to this, in a Much Wilder Mass Guess, Gibbs may have inherited the condition that made his mother deaf, based on his statement, when asked if he was deaf or stupid, that he's "a little of both".

• Possibly one of his ex-wives was deaf.

Vance will be killed or somehow removed from the director's position at some point.

Now that we've learned his big secret, about the page he took out of his file, his big background event is resolved. When Jenny Sheppard's background event was resolved, she died. Based on precedent, it's not looking good for Leon...

McGee's mother was Gibbs’ mysterious redheaded girlfriend during the first two seasons

He did not know she was dating Gibbs until he saw her at the office and asked Tony and Kate what they knew about her to see if they were aware of his connection to her. He did not reveal he was her son because he got the job on his own and was afraid that his co-workers would tease him about it like they do about everything else. Finally the two of them looked quite a bit alike (the actress who played her, Vivienne Bellisario, is the real life mother of Sean Murray who plays McGee).

Gibbs will retire in the series finale.

The final scene will be McGee hazing the new agent, and Tony will come up behind him and give him a Gibbs Slap.

Gibbs will die in the series finale.

The final scene will be Gibbs in the afterlife reuniting with his family.

At some near-future we will have CGIS spin-off show.

Hardly WMG, methinks.

The eyeball belongs to Agent Keating

His teammates on the brief "new team", Langer and Lee, both turned out to be important and Keating did nothing. Now it's his turn to be killed by the plot.

• No, the eye has been confirmed as belonging to CIA agent Trent Kort.

The File Tony was handed in the finale of Season 8

Was either about Ray or Kort. It's clear that those two are part of some new mystery, and we can pretty much rule out Gibbs or McGee as people who would betray their country.

• ...it's almost certainly about Agent Mitchell, who was the leak.
• I'd say the leak is Agent EJ Barrett, given that she removed some sort of nanochip device from her partner's arm once he was dead. Even if she's not selling/leaking it, it does raise the question of how she even knew it was there. Hence Tony's reaction to the file, seeing as he's dating her.
  • Jossed, as the man in the file is explicitly a man. In between Seasons 8 and 9, Tony will have killed him.

Season 9 will be the last

Something will lead to Gibbs deciding to finally retire for good this time, but will have likely solved some massive conspiracy. Of course, a flash forward will show that Tony and the gang still call to him much like he did with Franks.

• Unlikely, given the ratings. The only thing that would stop the show now would be one of the main actors leaving (and even that could be covered, as we saw with Kate)
• Jossed, just got renewed for season 10.

The series won't end until the rest of the rules are revealed

Gibbs is a wizard.

You know it's true.

When we'll find out how Gibbs get his boats out of his basement...

...we will find out for what G's name stands for.

• Nope. we know what the G stands for now. The boats are still a mystery
  • Huh? When did we find that out? I didn't see that in the newest episode! Either I missed something or you are very misinformed.
  • Not sure what they're talking about, the closest thing to a reveal of Callen's name that I can recall is his grandfather's name was Gerald.
    • Revealed that Callen's full name is Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev-Callen in season 7, or at least, his first name. The remaining bits of his name is revealed in bits and pieces after that.

Gibbs is the goddamn Batman.

He got the boats out via the Batcave.

• While he could possibly be Batman, he most certainly is not the Goddamn Batman, since he isn't a hobo named Crazy Steve.
  • No, Gibbs is Superman!

Jeanne and Tony WILL get back together in the series finale

Jossed for now, she's happily married to a doctor and after that episode she and Tony are square. Then again said doctor is a Doctors Without Borders-type who was kidnapped by rebel group that slaughtered all but one of his colleagues/patients so maybe in a few years when his luck runs out...?

The agent Tony is tasked with investigating at the end of Season 8 is on his own team.

McGee or Ziva more probably than Gibbs, but nobody is ever above suspicion. If it is one of these, they will likely turn out to be innocent, however. Another dramatic choice would have been Barrett, but she left.

Jenny bought Mossad information on The Frog with putting Ziva on the team.

Jenny clearly had few rules she wouldn't break in her quest to get The Frog. As letting someone she knew and trusted on the team would get her good information on The Frog so she could set up her op in a year or so, letting Mossad have an agent inside NCIS was a fair price in her mind.

The UST between Ziva and Tony shall be resolved on the Series Finale

The writers know that Tony and Ziva's UST is one of the biggest subplots that has helped them keep their viewers as the seasons have worn on. When it comes time for them to hang up the towel, they'll put Ziva and Tony together to satisfy the shippers and the final gray-out of the series will be Ziva and Tony sharing a kiss.

• So they're making Tony and Ziva the Harm and Mac of this series? That actually makes a lot of sense. Both Harm and Tony had many interests who went bust. They also had a relationship which ended with the death of the woman they liked. Ziva, like Mac, enjoyed a few relationships with similar guys. Both had a relationship with a non-American who loved them and went to great lengths for the, Mic the Aussie and Michael. Both then moved onto a CIA man, Clayton and Ray. I wonder if they will debate on who will quit by flipping a coin like in the JAG series finale.
  • It is hinted rather heavily that the UST between Tony and Ziva has been resolved quite a while ago, and that they are just keeping up appearances. It doesn't break this theory, but it will soften the emotional impact if the ending is "they were a couple all along, but they just kept it a secret."
    • But the obvious reason they AREN'T an explicit on-screen couple is because the writers know the Will They or Won't They? of Ziva and Tony's relationship is a big contributor to the great character dynamic of the show, and they'd risk Shipping Bed Death if they resolved it before the end of the series.
• Don't know what Ziva's up to but Tony's currently attempting to pursue a relationship with someone he knew from when he was a cop.

Abby is a Spark.

Abby's ability to produce massive amounts of incredibly precise forensic evidence, in record time and on her own, is due to her having the Spark. Her eccentric personality and her surprising ability to hold her own against violent opponents are other indicators. Forensic science and computer science are her scientific fields of choice.

• I think if she really as a Spark she'd be inventing or at least improving her devices on her own like Angela.

There is an in-universe show about a fictional NCIS team

And it started about the same time as the real show did. That's why, after the first few episodes, hardly anyone ever asks who/what the hell NCIS is when the team flash their badges at civilians. At some point, the navy consultant attached to this show will be murdered, and Team Gibbs will be called in to investigate.

• The episode in question will have a large amount of meta-humor. And McGee will have to go undercover as his "Gemcity" persona again to get into a famous person party.

Ducky is Illya Kuryakin

Illya Kuryakin was the cover identity of a young British doctor-turned-MI-6-agent named Donald Mallard. He was exposed as a spy in the mid to late 1960s, though his actual identity was never revealed. He subsequently retired from MI-6 and went back to his medical career, eventually becoming the medical examiner at NCIS.

• That would be U.N.C.L.E., not MI-6.
• Gibbs tells Kate in the Season 2 episode Meat Puzzle that Ducky looked like Illya Kuryakin when he was a young man, but it's never explicitly stated that Illya Kuryakin was a character on a TV show, so, in-universe, Kuryakin could have been a well-known exposed spy.
• Ducky's history is largely a mystery, so, really, it's possible. And so was Illya's. His backstory was never explored in any detail on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; even the first-season episode in which it's strongly implied that Illya holds a commission in the Soviet Navy could be a Red Herring.
• If one takes the 1983 TV movie "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E." as canon, rather than having been exposed as per the above speculation, Illya resigned from U.N.C.L.E. in high dudgeon over the death of an innocent in a mission several years after the series' end, and decided to dabble in fashion design as getting as far away from the world of espionage and law enforcement as he could. He rejoined the organization for a while in the 1980's, but left again, took up a new scientific interest (forensic and pathological medicine), changed his name, became a naturalized U.S. citizen and eventually joined NCIS.
• This could mean that the mysterious enemy behind everyone's problems is THRUSH.
• In addition, Tony's father is actually Alexander Mundy. He and Ducky each politely refuse to recognize one another from a few (undocumented) crossings of paths during their earlier careers.

Gibbs gets the boats out

By wishing them to the cornfield.

Ray Cruz was a fall guy for the CIA

He fell on his sword so to speak, to cover up the fact that the agency was perfectly ok with Ray's assassination attempt on U.S. soil. Allowing the agency to disavow all knowledge of the assassination. Alternatively the agency turned a blind eye to Ray's rouge tactics as long as he didn't get caught. When he killed the lieutenant by accident the CIA washed their hands of him.

Gibbs is a Jumper

• It's how he gets the boats out.
• It's how he catches up to every bad guy by taking the long way.
• It's how he moved from the hill where he sniped the terrorists to the building, about half a mile away, in twenty seconds.

Tony and Ziva both took the bed in Paris

• They'd already slept in the same bed before, so the awkwardness probably wouldn't be that high. Telling other people though might cause unwanted attention of Did They or Didn't They when they probably didn't for the viewers' sake of keeping up the UST.
• Since they both asked why the other lied at the end of the episode, it is heavily implied that they shared the bed.

Gibbs is the Angel of Death

The show already has elements of Magic Realism, and there are just some things about Gibbs that just can't be explained away by Memetic Badass.

• The boats. He gets them out with his powers, and he does carpentry as a Homage and to experience creation rather than destruction.
• The fact that his gut is always right, even when all the other characters have been wrong at one time or another. He already knows who the murderer is in any given case; he just can't let it be known until proof is found.
• Being able to cross a mile in less than two minutes without any fatigue- in a desert, clad in full combat gear, carrying a sniper rifle, while being over the age of 50.
• He became the Angel of Death after taking his revenge for the deaths of his family. The position is an acknowledgement of his will to protect people and punishment for the sin of taking judgement into his own hands.
• Gibbs is grooming Tony and/or Ziva to be his replacement once he moves on.
• Ducky knows what Gibbs is and helps him keep it hidden. Why else would a cornor be one of his friend? They're co-workers in a company besides NCIS.

Shannon and Kelly are not dead.

Season 3 was the first season where hints about Shannon and Kelly were revealed. In the Season 3 episode "Bait," a Marine's wife was being hunted by a drug lord because she had testified against him, leading to her faking her death and going into hiding. This is eerily similar to what happened to Shannon: She was going to testify against Pedro Hernandez, but he ended up sniping the agent protecting her and Kelly, leading to their car crash. In one of the flashbacks in "Hiatus," Franks shows Gibbs the car which was carrying the Gibbses, but we never see their bodies, only their graves. The real question: if they're not dead, did Franks, Jenny, Leon, etc., know?

Gibbs dies protecting Abby from the explosion

I can't think of any other way I think he would find more preferable.

• OP here: I'm going to put a Jossed on this myself, and be on my way out.

The "her" in Tony's Bucket List's part "Tell her" is Ziva...

...because he wants to tell her that he has been in love with her for years but never had the courage to actually tell her, so he hid behind his "clownish" persona.And then Ziva will tell him that she felt the same.

If Michael Weatherly ever decides he's done with the show, here's how they'll handle his departure...

They won't kill him off the way they did with Kate. No no no. Instead, they'll pull a little something like this...his mother is dead. We know that. But how did she die? Well, recently it was suspected that Robert Wagner managed to off his lovely wife Natalie Wood by pushing her overboard while she was drunk so she would drown. (Which has always bothered me, since Wood was known to be terrified of the open water, so why would she be on a yacht anyway, drunk or not?) Well, perhaps in-universe they could pull a reference to this and have it so that by the twentieth season finale or whatever ('cause I can see this show easily running as long as the original Law & Order, or even longer) we can get a story arc where it's found out that Tony Senior did it, in much the same way, and Tony Junior will be forced to arrest his own father. After which point he'll be so shocked by what has happened that he'll just decide to retire from NCIS - and not return the way Gibbs did between seasons three and four.

• And that would be sad. And that would lead to the show's catastrophic meltdown. And that's terrible.
• Jossed. He left after Ziva's death to raise their child.

Gibbs shot La Grenouille

We know he gave a spare magazine to Shepard, we know she gave it back to him the next morning - but we don't know that it's the same magazine that has the tell-tale defect.

Vance and Sec Nav served together in the Navy

And Crimson Tide is a prequel movie. After the failed operation in Amsterdam in the early 1990s, Vance returned to the Naval Academy under the assumed name of Derek Westergard to escape the assassins hunting him, and was deployed aboard the USS Alabama alongside the future Sec Nav. During this timeframe he met his wife, who is referred to in the movie. Following the events aboard the Alabama in October 1995, both he and Sec Nav either quit the Navy or were discharged. Vance went back into law enforcement, and in order to escape the disgrace of the incident eventually dropped the "Derek Westergard" identity once the danger of assassination was deemed to have passed, (though as the events of Enemies Foreign/Enemies Domestic proved, this may have been misguided).

The home-soil threat that Morrow mentioned is a private security firm called Ravenwood.

As we know, Morrow told Vance that the deaths of Eli David and his Iranian counterpart were distractions to keep people off-base while the real threat to America's future was a home-grown menace. What better menace than a bunch of right-wing whackjobs and corporate jerkwads trying to start their own country? And what better way to stop it than getting Super-Kill Guy Jethro Gibbs to fix the problem?

When the events of Revolution occurred, this show came to an abrupt end.

When a worldwide, supposedly permanent blackout occurs, the television becomes useless. Unfortunately, that causes TV shows to become extinct along with the television.

Abby will get her own Spin-Off and it will be an Animated Adaptation.

• Alternate suggestion: since CBS is working on a new NCIS spin-off set in New Orleans, and Abby is a New Orleans native, she may consider transferring to the new show.

Lt. Columbo is a real person in the NCIS universe.

In that episode that featured the private detective in the raincoat, McGee compares him to Columbo. The series is known for dropping lots of film references but they never state anything to the effect of "he's like a real life Columbo", McGee simply says he's like a private detective version of Columbo.

So what? Well if you've watched the Columbo films, you'd know that he'd made the news multiple times over his career- he was already regarded as a top detective when the series began, some of his cases made Los Angeles news, his case aboard the cruise ship made national Mexican newspapers, and the incident from "Columbo Cries Wolf" made major international news. Lt. Columbo is a major celebrity amongst law enforcement, so it's not unlikely that McGee would know who the man is.

Perhaps the production staff was hoping for Peter Falk to make a cameo by name dropping Columbo in such a manner? It didn't happen as Falk's health was already in bad shape by then, and he died a few years ago.

Gibbs wasn't trying to kill Fornell at the end of Season 10.

He was trying to protect him, and from whom will be revealed in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot."

• Half-confirmed. The shot wasn't meant to kill Fornell, or to save him: it was meant to save other people. The shot was aimed at a cell phone that was set to trigger a bomb nearby, and was located just a little past Fornell's rear. Fornell complains loudly about being Shot in the Ass - the bullet grazed him when it went past - afterward.

Ivan is going to be the Big Bad of season 11, or at least be a major antagonist.

He's stated to be one of the most powerful mob bosses in America, and Tony just destroyed his one chance to avenge his son's death. He is not going to let this one slide.

Ziva will return at some point during the next two seasons...

With an infant daughter. After it is revealed that she and Tony conceived her before they said goodbye early in Season 11, Tony will resign from NCIS and join Ziva in Israel where they will raise their daughter together.

• Not quite but still a brilliant call and still might end up being confirmed.

It will be revealed Ziva left the group and went back to Israel because she is dying of AIDS

Ziva was held in Somalia for several months during which time it is canon that she was tortured. It is pretty much a rock-solid certainty she was repeatedly raped during that period (it's hinted as much in the show when Ducky says that a lot of thing happened to her that she hasn't revealed). Given the prevalence of HIV in that area, it would be something close to a miracle if she hadn't been infected. She also had no medical treatment during that period, exacerbating the progress of the disease. her behavior, going back to her roots and retracing her life/trying to make amends all fits that hypothesis. She's dropped off the grid because she wants her friends and NCIS family to remember her the way she was. Ducky knows she is HIV-positive and moving rapidly into full-blown AIDS but has kept quiet at her request.

• Jossed

Ziva never really made mistakes with English idioms.

Knowing when she joined the team that she was going to scare people, she set out to cultivate some trait that would make her seem less perfect and slightly funny, while not affecting her professional competence. Her English is never faulty when it matters, and most of her malapropisms are too amusing to be real mistakes.

• And there was an episode where she really was up a tree — and not, as McGee insisted, up a creek.

Jenny's father was murdered by the C.I.A.

He was on the verge of innocently exposing illegal covert operations, so the Agency ordered him killed. And Trent Kort, in his first C.I.A.-sanctioned kill, did the deed. Thus, Kort killed both Jenny's father and the man Jenny mistakenly blamed for killing her father.

Sergei Mishnev is related to the the Davids.

Mishnev told Gibbs that he was responsible for destroying his family. He's also said to have a Palestinian mother, just like Ari. If this is true, Gibbs would be directly or indirectly responsible for his half-brother's death, his step-father's death, and his step-sister getting a Heroic BSoD.

• Possibly confirmed; in "Cabin Fever," Vance, McGee, and DiNozzo suspect this, stating that it's the best explanation for his hatred of Gibbs. However, given Mishnev's death, it's never said for certain.

Jake will be killed by Mishnev.

His goal is to hurt Gibbs personally (by killing Diane, etc.). Bishop is the only one with a family life that isn't completely dysfunctional. Now that as of "Cadence," Gibbs has asked Jake to help in the search for Mishnev, it's almost guaranteed that he'll be the next target.

• Jossed: Mishnev dies in "Cabin Fever."

Jake is a mole

He's being "stormy" at home not only because of survivor's guilt for missing the blast but because he had a hand in it. Either he planted the bomb himself, was giving intelligence to the enemy (willingly, forcefully, or unknowingly; it's been done before), or was secretly uploading NSA intelligence onto Wikileaks and realized his actions cost his coworkers their lives (alternately the blast had nothing to do with his leaks but because of his guilt he thinks it's connected, outs himself, and goes to prison forever).

• Jake is the "regular channel" version of Sgt. Brody (not to be confused with NCIS: New Orleans' Agent Brody) from Homeland: straight-laced-looking Fake American in US intelligence escapes deadly situation after being turned by the enemy (before the blast, obviously, unless the cabdriver threatened his loved ones during the ride).
  • Related to the above, Jake didn't have an affair—his confession sounded very fake and rehearsed, IMO. The woman Ellie saw him with was indeed reprimanding him. He told her he was cheating so that she'd get angry and dump him, but ultimately be safe from whoever was threatening him.

Ziva has survived

We know she sleeps very lightly and has ultra-fast reactions. She heard the mortar rounds descending and got to cover (probably under her bed) before they hit. Having made sure her daughter is safe with Tony, she has gone hunting the man who fired the mortar rounds, keeping the edge that he thinks she's dead. At some point, he'll wish he was. Eventually, she'll reappear and link up with Tony and her daughter (probably as guest stars in an episode).

• DiNozzo seems to leave the door open for this in his dialogue, talking about how Ziva "loves Paris" (note the choice of verb tense).
  • Tony's dad visited him and Tali in Paris, and never mentioned Ziva. Unless Tony swore him to secrecy (even from Team Gibbs), this may be Jossed.
    • Alternatively, they may have simply decided that Senior can't keep the secret and so kept it from him when he visited. Rule 4 says that the best way to keep a secret is to keep it to yourself or one other person IF YOU MUST, and it would be entirely fitting to have Ziva applying the rules to her life, considering that Gibbs told her early on that his job was to teach them to her.
• Hinted at in "She" where an unknown woman fulfilled one of Ziva's promises and left a note telling Ellie not to reveal her existence.

In season 14, we will meet Director Vance's father, and he will be played by Philip Michael Thomas

McGee will start dispensing dope slaps now that he's the "Very Special Agent"

Maxine "Max Destructo" Edwards is a Time Lord

In "Kill Screen", Maxine mentions being the high score holder of every MMORPG. Now, in our world there are not enough hours in the day to play every MMORPG, let alone achieving the high score in every MMORPG. Assuming the NCIS universe does have a comparable amount of MMORPGs to our world, that is, there are more MMORPGs than are playable in a day, and, assuming maxing the "high score" refers to leveling every available job and skill to maximum capacity, and completing all available quests, then, there must be an element of time/space manipulation going on here, assuming there is not some large scale gold farming operation in which all the gold farmers do all the leveling for her.

The team will use DiNozzo Sr to get into the White House at some point

At one point in his early appearances, Sr made a comment that he was mooching a ride back to New York with an old business associate from his entrepreneur days... Donald Trump. Guess who's President now? Since NCIS has a contact who knows the President personally, they might as well use it at some point.

• Amazingly, in all four years of the Trump Presidency, the subject never comes up once.

The team will conclude that Costa Rica is bad luck

Jack decides to retire to Costa Rica, within a week, a close friend is betrayed, kidnapped and murdered. Fornell decides to retire to Costa Rica, his daughter relapses on her opioid habit and has a fatal OD. Conclusion: if you try to go to Costa Rica, someone you know is going to die.