‘NCIS’: Tony DiNardo Callback, Explained

It’s a great time to be a longtime fan of NCIS. Not only is Mark Harmon in every episode of Origins Season 3, Michael Weatherly back on NCIS, and LL COOL J playing Sam Hanna again (on the latest spinoff, New York), but the mothership just referenced something from Season 4 in the Tuesday, October 20, episode.

“Sleeping Dogs” is all about Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) and who he was before he joined the team, specifically when he worked undercover with Keller (Mike O’Malley) as his handler. And during the course of the investigation, Keller comes into HQ and recognizes Tony (Michael Weatherly), who “got into trouble back in the day.” Keller says he was a “legendary undercover guy” and tries to recall his alias. Tony DiWaldo? he asks. “DiNardo,” Tony corrects him, a film studies professor. Keller also thinks that it’s a joke that Tony’s now the agency’s director, but DiNozzo assures him he runs a tight ship … before running off to get a slice of birthday cake.

Sonja Flemming/CBS

That’s the name that Tony used in Season 4 when, on then-director Jenny Shepard’s (Lauren Holly), he was cozying up to Jeanne Benoit (Scottie Thompson), daughter of international arms dealer René Benoit (a.k.a. La Grenouille), played by Armand Assante. To say that went south would be an understatement — and we’re not just talking about Tony’s car being blown up and that being how the rest of the team was clued in on the assignment. (Never had a team ever been happier hear that a victim’s remains didn’t include lungs scarred from the plague.)

Once the truth came out, he apologized to her for getting caught up in any of it. “Was any of it real?” she asked. “No,” he told her, and she walked out, telling him, “I wish I never met you.”

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The two did reunite eight years later, in Season 13, in “Saviors,” then “Loose Cannons.”

What did you think of the Tony DiNardo callback? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS