Ellie Bishop should have stayed with the NSA instead of joining the NCIS team where relationships go to die (sometimes quite literally).
Last week on "NCIS," Bishop (Emily Wickersham) learned that her husband, Jake (Jamie Bamber) was having an affair, so she left him and ran home to Oklahoma. Unless she can forgive Jake and take him back, Bishop will be trading stories of heartbreak with her fellow agents who are all well acquainted with love loss.
Let's recap:
Leroy Jethro Gibbs
Starting with the boss man, Gibbs (Mark Harmon) has loved only one woman in his life despite a total of four marriages. A drug dealer killed his first wife, Shannon (Darby Stanchfield), and their daughter, Kelly.
Gibbs married three more times, but none of them stuck. He also shared a dalliance with his former partner and the late NCIS Director Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly).
His longest relationship since those was with Army Lt. Col. Hollis Mann (Susanna Thompson), but she soon realized he wasn't and never would be over his first wife.
Tony DiNozzo
Tony (Michael Weatherly) has always chided his boss for those three failed marriages, but the senior special agent doesn't have much to show for his own love life. He flirted heavily with his first partner, Caitlin Todd (Sasha Alexander), until her death. He then fell in love with his undercover mark, Jeanne Benoit (Scottie Thompson), who he recently reunited with to save her husband.
For nine years, DiNozzo and his partner Ziva David (Cote de Pablo) kept their feelings on the backburner (except maybe that night in Paris). When it looked like they might pursue those feelings, Ziva decided to stay in Israel while Tony flew back to D.C.
He's now dating ATF Special Agent Zoe Keates (Marisol Nichols), but her MIA status doesn't bode well for the couple.
Timothy McGee
Abby's (Pauley Perrette) tattoos and goth appearance didn't scare away McGee (Sean Murray), who fell hard for the lab tech when he first joined Gibbs' team. Their relationship ultimately didn't last and other than a few dates here and here, Tim stayed out of the dating game until he met Delilah Fielding (Margo Harshman).
The couple has sustained a few bumps in the road, but recently moved in together and seemed to be making it work. Way to go, McLovin!
Abby Sciuto
Speaking of Abby, we haven't seen many of her boyfriends besides McGee. She did have the freaky stalker who tried to impress her by staging real crime scenes, but the team locked him up quick.
Last season, Abby dated the U.S. Park Police Sergeant Burt Moore (Johann Urb) who helped out the NCIS team on a couple cases, but he too has not been seen lately.
Director Leon Vance
When Vance was promoted to the director's chair, he had a beautiful wife and two wonderful children at home. Unfortunately, an assault on his home during dinner with Mossad director and Ziva's father, Eli David (Michael Nouri), claimed his wife, Jackie (Paula Newsome), and Eli.
Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard
Ducky (David McCallum) has better luck connecting with the dead rather than the living. He thought he'd found a woman who was his intellectual equal until she turned out to be a serial killer and shared one date with McGee's grandmother, Penelope (Lily Tomlin).
A flashback episode revealed he fell in love with his best friend's girl, Maggie, as a young man. She ultimately married Ducky's best friend, but he continued to wear bow ties because of her.
Ziva David
Before she kissed Tony goodbye on the airport tarmac, Ziva had several relationships while working for NCIS. She dated fellow Mossad Officer Michael Rivkin (Merik Tadros) until Tony killed him, and carried on a mostly long-distance relationship with CIA Agent Ray Cruz (Enrique Murciano) for a few months.
Jimmy Palmer
Turns out, "NCIS" does have one successful love story - Jimmy Palmer (Brian Dietzen). After dating NCIS mole, Michelle Lee (Liza Lapira), the autopsy gremlin married a beautiful mortician, Breena (Michelle Pierce), who gave birth to their daughter, Victoria.
"NCIS" airs on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.
