Emily Wickersham Returns as Ellie Bishop in NCIS: Origins Season 3
Emily Wickersham is returning as Eleanor “Ellie” Bishop in NCIS: Origins Season 3.
She will guest star in multiple episodes, meaning she appears in a short run rather than as a full-time cast member. Her first appearance is set for Tuesday, Oct. 27 in an episode titled “Shimmy Shimmy Ya,” according to Deadline. News of the casting was reported on Oct. 20.
It is Bishop’s debut in Origins. The series is a prequel, meaning its main action takes place before the events of the original NCIS. It follows a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs at the start of his Naval Criminal Investigative Service career. Wickersham played Bishop for eight seasons on the flagship NCIS before exiting in 2021. She returned for a guest appearance in March.
Her new assignment ties directly to Gibbs. Bishop is enlisted by Tony DiNozzo, played by Michael Weatherly, who now holds the job of NCIS Director in the story. The pair are asked to help Gibbs track down unknown assailants who tried to kill him. Weatherly himself appears as DiNozzo in Season 3 Episode 3, titled “Return of the Mack.”
That order of arrivals matters. Bishop is the second star from the original NCIS to reunite with the older Gibbs in Origins Season 3, following Weatherly. The older Gibbs is played by Mark Harmon, who led the original series for many years. Harmon will appear across the rest of Season 3 in a special present-day timeline, meaning scenes set now rather than in the past, that runs alongside the younger Gibbs plot. David J. North is showrunner and executive producer of Origins. The title covers the writer-producer who leads the writers’ room and guides each episode from script to screen.
Viewers have already had a glimpse of what is coming. A first-look sneak-peek photo shows Wickersham’s Bishop standing with Harmon’s Gibbs ahead of the Oct. 27 episode, as shared by TV Insider. A released clip from Season 3 Episode 4 also previews their on-screen reunion, according to Bleeding Cool.
For fans, this means a quick payoff. The wait is days, not months. Two familiar colleagues are back around Gibbs just as his own story turns dangerous.
