For thirteen seasons, there was one word Tony DiNozzo loved more than any movie quote.
“Probie.”
He threw it at Sean Murray‘s Timothy McGee across the bullpen, over coffee, in the middle of crime scenes. Sometimes with affection. Mostly to get under his skin. Now Michael Weatherly is back on NCIS, Tony is the director of the agency, and McGee has been waiting a very long time for this moment.
Tony’s first day in the big chair
Season 24 opened with a twist nobody saw coming. Tony DiNozzo came back to Washington to open a satellite office of his private security firm. By the end of the premiere, “Wayward Son,” he was running NCIS.
Showrunner Steven D. Binder told TV Insider the team didn’t want Tony back in the bullpen as a regular agent. Making him director “just seemed like the kid who pulls the fire alarm in high school and you come back and [he]’s the principal.”
That’s Tony, all right.
Tonight’s episode, “Clean Slate,” is Season 24, Episode 2. It airs Tuesday, October 13, at 8/7c on CBS and streams on Paramount+. It’s Tony’s first real day on the job.
“Who’s your probie?”
In a sneak peek released by Us Weekly, Tony leans in and whispers the question only he would ask: “OK, tell me, who’s your probie?”
McGee says he doesn’t have one. “They never assigned me a probie.”
Tony isn’t having it. “They don’t assign anyone a probie, you gotta take one. Someone to mentor.”
“To torture,” McGee says.
“Exactly. Everyone benefits.”
So Tony puts his “director hat back on” and orders McGee to get one. McGee thinks about it for a second. Then he points out he’s already served as acting director several times, and this is pretty much Tony’s first day.
Tony threatens a court-martial. McGee just grins: “Whatever you say, probie.”
Twenty-some years of payback, delivered in four words.
Corvettes, coffee and an old apartment
The clip has more for longtime fans. Over coffee at headquarters, McGee jokes that he hopes Tony isn’t there to ask for his old apartment back, because Delilah just redecorated. Tony says he’s already cleared it with Delilah. McGee panics for a beat before Tony admits he found another place.
Then someone walks by and says, “Afternoon, director.”
“Director DiNozzo. Still doesn’t sound real,” McGee says.
“I’m hoping repetition helps,” Tony replies.
McGee insists he believes Tony can do the job. He just keeps picturing “the guy who drove a Corvette with his feet.”
Why this one lands
McGee was the new kid when Tony was the senior field agent who never let him forget it. Tony left NCIS in 2016, after 13 seasons, and McGee stayed. He became the senior agent, a husband, a dad, and the one who knows where every file is buried. Sean Murray is now the longest-serving cast member on the show.
So when the old student calls the old teacher “probie,” it isn’t just a joke. It’s a measure of how far both of them have come.
Tony fans also got NCIS: Tony & Ziva on Paramount+, but this is different. This is Tony back on the flagship show, back at the Navy Yard, back with the people who knew him when he was the class clown. If you want the full story of how he got here, our guide to Tony’s Season 24 return has it.
The case waiting for him
Tony doesn’t get an easy first week. In “Clean Slate,” a man is murdered after a neighborhood dinner party. The team finds that every guest is lying about a strange break-in at the victim’s house, about what they were burning in their backyards, and about who they really are. CBS adds that the deeper the team digs, the less they can agree on what kind of case they’re even working.
A lying cul-de-sac. A brand-new director. And McGee holding the nickname for once.
We’ll be watching. And if you’re still catching up on the people who built this team, start with Mark Harmon’s 418 episodes as Gibbs. Tony learned everything from him, even if he’d never admit it.
