This week’s episode of NCIS delved into the dark past of Ziva, played by Cote de Pablo, and we discover this pretty woman is also quite the trained killer. The episode flashes back to another time in her life before she began to work with the NCIS team.  She was apart of a task force sent out on a mission to assassinate one of her father’s rivals named Saleem Ulman.

The story begins when the remains of a marine’s body are found in the Indian Sea by a shrimp boat and because Ziva’s account of the operation is found to have quite a few irregularities, she is interrogated to learn the truth.

 Ziva refuses to cooperate, establishing the fact that she was not a NCIS operative at the time and that she could not speak about top secret missions from her past. Matters get worse when the ship is recovered and it is discovered that the entire crew had been executed.

Just as matters are looking pretty murky for Ziva, her old team leader, Malachi Ben-Gidon, shows up at NCIS and demands that Ziva be return to Mossad’s control. Vance wants to know what happened on that ship before he releases her and Malachi agrees to tell him what happened,since he too was aboard. He tells them that because their cover had been blown, which jeopardized their mission, that they were forced to kill everyone on the ship, and that Ziva had killed Cryer because he had given them up.

Finally, Ziva tells her side of the story, which is that Malachi killed the marine. The NCIS team believes her, partially because the bullets found at the scene led them to believe that the shooter missed the target at point blank range, something they knew Ziva wouldn’t do. They bluff Malachi with a bullet they falsely claim came from the victim, which breaks down his lie.

Vance angrily sends Malachi back to Israel with a stern message to his commander.  Through all of this drama Ziva was trying to get her application accepted to become a permanent member of the NCIS team, and after proving her loyalty she is accepted as an NCIS agent. ­

This was a particularly intense episode of NCIS with Ziva’s loyalty being questioned you really don’t fully know who she is loyal to.  After all is said and done Ziva’s character and loyalties are fully uncovered.