The Deaths Of These NCIS Characters Would Make Fans Stop Watching
CBS' "NCIS" is no stranger to killing off cast members. In fact, the series began saying goodbye to major characters as early as its second season, when regular cast member Sasha Alexander left the series and her character, Kate, died at the end of the season's finale episode. Even the most recent "NCIS" season saw the death of Emily Fornell (Juliette Angelo) and Jimmy Palmer's (Brian Dietzen) wife Breena (Michelle Pierce) also died off-screen. Of course, the show's various goodbyes and departures haven't all been surprising or necessarily unwarranted. After all, it makes sense that an investigative unit that fights terrorists would often have to deal with death.
However, similar to what happened when Brian died on "Family Guy," loyal viewers can still feel betrayed and outraged by a show's recurring cast members leaving. With that in mind, one Reddit thread even went so far as to ask "NCIS" fans which two character deaths would make them quit watching the show altogether.
So, without further ado, here are the "NCIS" characters whose demises would cause fans to cease watching the hit crime procedural.
The NCIS fandom would give up if Gibbs died
In a recent Reddit thread, u/DarthMaulOpress named Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and Tobias Fornell (Joe Spano) as the two characters whose deaths would make them quit watching the show. The user then went on to ask their fellow fans which character deaths would provoke the same reaction from them, and, unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for other "NCIS" viewers to join in on the conversation.
One commenter noted that "most of the characters i liked left the show but if i had to choose id say gibbs and mcgee," while others seemed to agree that a lot of the best "NCIS" characters, such as Field Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) and Special Agent Ziva David (Cote de Pablo), had already left the series or been killed off. u/cudambercam13 sarcastically wrote that "there's not many left to choose from..."
Other Redditors had a variety of answers, most of which mentioned Harmon's Gibbs as the character they'd most hate to see die in the show. Both Ducky (David McCallum) and Vance (Rocky Carroll) were also mentioned repeatedly as characters whose deaths would make "NCIS" jump the shark in fans' eyes. That said, maybe u/The5Virtues put it best when they wrote, "Honestly I don't think there's any one character who could make me leave. All my favorites have already left. I still enjoy the show for the show itself."
You can currently revisit the first fifteen seasons of "NCIS" on Netflix or watch all of the series now on Paramount+.