{"id":4026,"date":"2025-12-19T16:38:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=4026"},"modified":"2025-12-19T16:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:38:17","slug":"emily-wickershams-ncis-season-23-return-explained-will-ellie-bishop-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/?p=4026","title":{"rendered":"Emily Wickersham\u2019s NCIS Season 23 Return Explained: Will Ellie Bishop Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Contains spoilers for \u201cNCIS\u201d Season 23, Episode 9 \u2014 \u201cHeaven and Nature\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Beloved former \u201cNCIS\u201d regular Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham) is back \u2014 but is she here to stay? Her appearance right at the end of the fall finale means she\u2019ll likely be involved straight away when the show returns,\u00a0but don\u2019t expect to see her beyond that. \u201cWe have no official plans right now to continue that storyline, but we had a great time with Emily, and Emily had a great time here,\u201d showrunner Steven D. Binder told TVLine. \u201cSo she\u2019s sort of back on the roster, so to speak. But we\u2019ve done some very long arc stories that have run out. This is not going to be one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4027\" src=\"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FB_IMG_1766162258813-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FB_IMG_1766162258813-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FB_IMG_1766162258813-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FB_IMG_1766162258813.jpg 736w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It looks like this\u2019ll be a twice-and-done affair for Emily Wickersham, whose Ellie Bishop exited \u201cNCIS\u201d during Season 18. Binder didn\u2019t state which episode Ellie would show up in, but it\u2019s safe to assume that she\u2019ll be at the forefront of Episode 10, with the showrunner keen to cut to the chase. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go right to what people want to see, and we\u2019re going to have some closure, although that may or may not be what people want to see,\u201d Binder added. Viewers will have to wait until \u201cNCIS\u201d returns after its winter break to find out all the details \u2014 Episode 10 will air on February 24, 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will this be Ellie\u2019s final NCIS appearance?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We know that she\u2019s going to return for a short \u2014 and, hopefully, very satisfying \u2014 arc after the \u201cNCIS\u201d winter break, but will that be it for Emily Wickersham\u2019s Ellie Bishop? Is this going to be Elli\u2019s swansong? It does kind of feel that way: As revealed in \u201cHeaven and Nature,\u201d Ellie is now the quarry of Katrina Law\u2019s Jessica Knight (who ironically replaced Ellie on the NCIS team). She\u2019s the subject of Jessica\u2019s first NCIS Elite assignment, which sets up a nice showdown between the two. Is it possible that Ellie won\u2019t make it out alive?<\/p>\n<p>Rest easy, Ellie fans. While Binder didn\u2019t answer that question specifically, his comments made it clear that whatever he has in store for Ellie in Season 23, it won\u2019t be the end of her as a character \u2014 the showrunner revealed that the door would be open for Wickersham to return again in the future. \u201cShe had a great time. We had a great time. It\u2019s a fun story\u201d Binder told TVLine, adding that Bishop \u201calways was an interesting character. She\u2019s a way more interesting character now, because of the wear and tear on the psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contains spoilers for \u201cNCIS\u201d Season 23, Episode 9 \u2014 \u201cHeaven and Nature\u201d Beloved former \u201cNCIS\u201d regular Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham) is back \u2014 but is she here&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4028,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions\/4028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncisnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}