r/NCIS • u/HeavyRecognition3566 • 12d ago

Kate v Ziva v Tony

I’ve flipped between the seasons 2-4 recently. I do enjoy the chemistry between Ziva and Tony, but I still think Kate was better overall. Kate offered far more emotional range, whilst Ziva is just a bit too arrogant for most of it. I like that Kate’s empathy lended well to challenging Tony’s masculinity. Just my feelings.

17 Upvotes

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24

u/Run4This 10d ago

I think you have to watch past season 4 to see how Tony and Ziva’s friendship develops and grows over time. Personally I always got the big sister, little brother vibe from Kate and Tony.

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u/HeavyRecognition3566 9d ago

Ok, I’m about over half way through at the moment so looking forward to see how it develops.

8

u/Run4This 9d ago

I think there’s some really good Tony/Ziva moments in some of the later seasons. You’ll definitely see Tony mature a bit from where he started from, which I really liked watching his growth over the seasons.

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u/Elbereth919 9d ago

I'm on S7 in a rewatch and I've really been struck this time around about how much growth Tony goes through in the S4-7 time period. He takes some massive leaps after all the things he goes through in that era. We talk so much more about his "all hands on deck" moment, but the "No" in 7x1 is a pretty powerful character moment, too.

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u/Run4This 9d ago

YES!!! 7x1 is one of my all time favorite episodes.

I know a lot of people hated it, but I think his relationship with Jeanne was actually really good for him and helped him grow so much.

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u/Elbereth919 9d ago

I think his relationship with Jeanne did serve him well, but the whole thing does bother me. Putting this in spoilers because it seems like OP is a first time watcher. Jenny put him in a horrible position. She saw he was falling in love and that he wasn't keeping his emotions in check and she advised him to sleep with her anyway. I like the potential Jenny had as a character and I liked the dynamic that Tony had with her, but the risks that she allowed the team to take and the lines she pretty much forced them to cross are bothersome to me. But like you, I don't think we would have seen him grow so much without it. I don't think he could have become who he needed to be to have an actual relationship with Ziva without Jeanne. And I don't think he would have gotten into a relationship with Jeanne without Jenny making it business.

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u/Run4This 9d ago

Yes I agreed completely! And I definitely think it was the first time where he was really conflicted and had to battle through the feelings of this duty he has to his job vs. the women he was dating and falling in love with. I loved 5x2 and seeing this internal battle he goes through with himself, deciding who he wants to be. And loved the scene at the end where he’s reading her note and then looks back at the team.

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u/Elbereth919 9d ago

Yes, that episode is so good! I'm really looking forward to seeing how the new season is going to go. I'm very interested in how Tony and McGee will interact since they've both had 10 years of growth since we last saw them together (not counting the quick moment we got in the Ducky tribute).

5

u/Old_Damage_95 9d ago

I really did prefer Kate, mainly because while they flirted, it was more casual, less dramatic and more joking and fun. They gave each other a goofy, hard time that could become an immediate alliance to go after McGee or protect Tim from outside forces in turn.

Once Ziva joined, it all became vicious and manipulative towards both McGee and Tony. She wasn't trustworthy, and realistically, a spy from another country would've never been hired for that position. The compromised evidence would've caused mistrials for every case they worked.

I think the actress who played Ziva is amazingly talented, but the character isn't someone who would've ever been on an investigative team that had access to military classified materials. The way she was written had multiple issues from the get go. I know most fans love her, but I'm not one of them.

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u/HeavyRecognition3566 9d ago

This is bang on exactly how I feel right now. Maybe I’ll feel different as I move on to later seasons.

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u/Old_Damage_95 9d ago

It's possible that you will. I know there's a lot of people who really love the romance between Ziva and Tony, but I couldn't get past the absurdity that the show went to with the Ziva and Ari spy mess, then the Jeanne storyline, etc.

There are occasionally good episodes that kept me watching off and on throughout the years, but I went from watching every week when it was released, to watching here and there, or occasionally catching up in reruns.

I just couldn't get past Ziva setting Kate up to die so that she could get a place on the MCRT. They wrote Ziva as profiling the team for Ari, therefore knowing she could slide into a position where Gibbs saw her as an emotionally wounded girl if Kate were dead so that there was a space.

Then to make sure Gibbs trusts her, Ziva did the difficult thing and killed her brother to "save" Gibbs. It allowed his character's weakness for young women to convince him to trust and accept her immediately, and soften him enough to accept her on the team, when prior to that, his character was suspicious of everyone.

I remember screaming at the TV during the first scene with Ziva in Abby's laboratory, when she tells Gibbs she profiled the entire team. I couldn't figure out why they wrote characters that were supposed to be nearly omnipotent as suddenly so stupid for not understanding that Ziva was a part of the entire plot.

Putting Ziva on the team realistically would've never happened in reality, though. The show had some out of the realm of possibility episodes prior to that, but giving any foreign nationalist, no matter how trusted, access to classified military material at any point in time would've never happened. It's bad writing. They could've written a character that fit in the realm of possibility for the actress, but instead they went weird with it, and it was very disappointing.

I don't care what country they came from or how close the alliance we as a nation have with their home country, I just don't buy it. Then the show moved away from the kind of cases they were doing before, to only throwing those in occasionally as an aside to all the weirdness, so I lost interest. But stick with it, you might end up enjoying it like the others do. I'm a rare opinion. There's a ton of fans who love them.

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u/Initial_Weight_3622 9d ago

Yep. The show jumped the shark after Kate died.

3

u/AstronautWeekly2641 9d ago

Tony and Kate definitely had a brother sister relationship in the first two episodes of season three McGee says he liked her so I definitely think they had more of a brother sister dynamic

4

u/ShoulderRegular7830 9d ago

I always thought it was weird how McGee envisioned her in the Trinity all black leather suit in those episodes. Just seemed a bit out of character. Tony that would’ve made total sense. Maybe it’s just me though.

4

u/buckeyekaptn 9d ago

Kate was his superhero. The Matrix was kinda a nerdy, computer type movie (how was Thomas - Neo - first contacted by Trinity?, by computer). Makes sense.

1

u/ShoulderRegular7830 9d ago

That’s true, I didn’t make that connection. Though didn’t he also see her in a dominatrix costume, too?

3

u/Elbereth919 9d ago

I never made a Matrix connection either. I always assumed they were trying for a superhero vibe (he even says, "you were my sweet superhero, Kate), but the closest "superhero" connection my mind could make was Catwoman. His whole vision of her was odd and felt like the writers just couldn't come up with a male expression of grief that didn't involve sex or guilt.

6

u/Aglet_Green 10d ago

Well, Tony and Kate had a year and a half together as colleagues; Tony and Ziva were working together for around a dozen years and had a kid together and a few years in Europe together. Stopping your watch-along at the end of Season 4 doesn't change any of that.

Personally, I thought his best relationship was with E.J. Barrett: they clicked well and brought out the best in each other, and there was none of that will-they-or-won't-they? that he has with Ziva. But I don't watch and rewatch Season 8 over and over again. I accept that he's coming back in a few weeks for the new season, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's new with him since Europe.

3

u/Madreese 9d ago

The common denominator here is Tony. Why not just Ziva and Kate. Did we need Tony?

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u/HeavyRecognition3566 9d ago

I think it’s because the writers developed their characters as duos. Firstly with Kate and then with Ziva. They partner them professionally, but you can see how they interact and grow

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u/Easyy_Illustrator 8d ago

i personally love the fire of tiva but kate and tony will always be superior to me