Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Tony & Ziva episode “To Be Determined” are ahead!
We’re halfway through NCIS: Tony & Ziva’s run on the 2025 TV schedule, and man, what a way to mark the midpoint of this journey. Until now, Martine Aranow has been the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive NCIS spinoff’s main antagonist, but now we finally know who she’s in cahoots with following the premiere of “To Be Determined.” Not only is this secret villain someone we’ve already met on Tony & Ziva, bur with this revelation came the heartbreaking, and frankly shocking, death of another familiar face.
Jonah Markham Is The Show’s Secret Villain
In last week’s episode of NCIS: Tony & Ziva, fresh off that faux wedding operation, Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David learned from their ally Claudette Caron that Jonah Markham, the missing Inspector General of NATO, was being held at a supermax prison in Austria under the alias Oscar Zagreb. After using Martine’s phone and ID to take her private plane for themselves, they arrived at the prison. Using Boris’ 9.4 program and their natural subterfuge skills, Tony and Ziva infiltrated the prison and managed to track down Jonah, while Claudette, Boris Peskov and Fruzsi Gortva monitored from afar.
However, things went sideways when it was revealed that Jonah wasn’t being held against his will at this prison, he was secretly controlling it. In addition to keeping the stolen Reigning Fire prototype drone on the complex, Jonah had gone undercover to court a hacker named Dejan Lazar. Lazar’s hometown in Bosnia was destroyed by a paramilitary squad on the orders of Aaron Graves, head of Reigning Fire. Though Lazar had no choice but to offer his skills to Graves, Lazar’s own technology was used years later to cause thousands of deaths in the Sudan, which Graves deployed without his knowledge.
Lazar was subsequently thrown into the supermax prison and became estranged from his son. Now Jonah and Martine, presenting themselves as upstanding INTERPOL agents, are offering him a chance at redemption by helping them break through Reigning Fire’s firewall and take control of the other drones. Jonah and Martine have their own beef with Graves that remains a mystery for now, though Jonah also indicated that while he’s American, he was born in Serbia.
Henry Rayner-Hunt Died To Help Tony And Ziva
After Tony and Ziva learned about Jonah’s true nature, they were put in a prison cell, but of course they were going to escape. They were then able to contact Henry Rayner-Hunt, Tony’s longtime friend at INTERPOL whom they initially suspected might be allied with Martine. Thankfully, Henry had no clue she and Jonah were up to no good. He was already on his way to the supermax because Martine had alerted him that Tony and Ziva had been captured (remember, they were wanted as fugitives), so upon learning the truth over the phone, he agreed to help.
Even in the midst of a prison break that Jonah Markham caused to delay them, Tony and Ziva made their way out of the prison and reunited with Henry. They even managed to apprehend Jonah, Martine and Lazar as they were trying to flee, but that’s where the lucky breaks ended. Not only did Jonah successfully use the prototype drone to blow up the prison and fake Lazar’s death, Tony and Ziva got a disturbing voice memo from Tali indicating she was in danger. Henry gave them his car so they could go rescue their daughter, but in a moment of distraction during the drone strike, Jonah got the jump on Henry and fatally shot him.
I’m used to character being killed off in shows like this, but Henry dying at just Episode 5, and shortly after he learned Tony and Ziva were innocent, legitimately took me by surprise. Now our main protagonists’ mission to clear their names could take them down the path of revenge, at least on Tony’s end. And judging by the look on Martine’s face after Henry was killed, perhaps this has laid the groundwork for her to eventually defect from Jonah. We’ll see where things go from here when Episode 6 of NCIS: Tony & Ziva is released next Thursday.
