Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Tony & Ziva episode “Full Circle” are ahead!
Well, Cote de Pablo got her wish for the first season of NCIS: Tony & Ziva end on the 2025 TV schedule with its title characters getting a “happy something.” After Jonah Markham was defeated and their names were cleared, Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David officially resumed their romantic relationship at the end of “Full Circle” with their daughter Tali’s blessing. Unfortunately, Boris Peskov didn’t get nearly as happy an ending in the Tony & Ziva Season 1 finale, and the character’s actor, Ted Lasso alum Maximilian Osinski, talked with CinemaBlend about how he felt when learning about this twist.
During the first half of NCIS: Tony & Ziva Season 1, viewers watched Boris and his fiancée, Fruzsi Gortva, be lovey-dovey with each other, and they got married in “Wedding Crashers.” Fruzsi was absent from the second half to get everything in their honeymoon together… or at least that’s what Boris thought. Towards the end of “Full Circle,” he tearfully revealed to Tony and Claudette that “Fruzsi,” which was not really her name, was a con artist who stole his money and disappeared. So naturally I had to get Osinski’s thoughts about this heartbreaking development, namely when he learned about it, and he started off by saying:
I think when the script was coming out, and I was surprised as much as anyone else. I mean, obviously the writers know about… you’re kind of the last to know. So I was surprised because of the way it had been set up, but then it also made sense in the sense that it tracked for me. I had to justify it for why this would happen. Boris got infatuated and missed some of the signs.
When Boris showed Tony and Claudette the video Fruzsi sent him sometime after Jonah was arrested, the way she was talking made it seem at first like she was just leaving him, as she recorded the video in front of a private jet. But then Boris told them how she’d taken everything from him and disappeared without a trace. In fact, because Fruzsi was a fake identity, this means that Boris was technically never officially married.
I was taken aback a bit by this twist, and Max Osinski initially felt the same way when he read this NCIS: Tony & Ziva script. However, upon thinking it over, he realized there was writing on the wall for Fruzsi’s deception this whole time on the Paramount+ subscription-exclusive series. He explained:
Because here’s a person who on top of saying she loves you, she also tells you that you’re a poet and you’re a genius and you deserve better, and you have my respect and the world needs to respect this. As a guy, you find someone that feeds your ego and your passions and tells you they love you, your blinders are narrow and you can miss what your friends or your family could see a mile away. And I think it makes for an interesting twist, and it’s gonna be fun to see how Boris deals with that in Season 2. Is he going looking for her or does he go back on a dating app?
In hindsight, Fruzsi was a little too generous with the praise she heaped on Boris. Sure, he was a skilled hacker and an overall decent guy, but her fawning over him sometimes felt like overkill. Now we know it was all a ploy to gain his trust, and he paid a terrible price for it. Thankfully, Boris isn’t left with nothing entirely, as Tony offered him a job at his security company. It also sounds like Boris will continue being part of Tony, Ziva and Claudette’s lives, meaning he still has a support system to lean on.
As for if Boris Peskov will indeed go looking for “Fruzsi” or just return to the dating apps, it’s hard to say if either option will ever be explored since there’s been no announcement of NCIS: Tony & Ziva Season 2 happening. But if the show is renewed, I’ll cross my fingers that Maximilian Osinski will be brought back so we can see the next chapter of Boris’ life.
