NCIS star Emily Wickersham is back on the case after reprising her role as Special Agent Eleanor Bishop in the season 23 fall finale. The actress, who first joined the show in 2013, departed the drama eight years later, bidding adieu when her character, Eleanor, got herself fired from NCIS so she could work undercover for CIA agent Odette Malone. Following a four-year hiatus, however, Emily, 41, is back for a brand new storyline involving Jessica Knight (Katrina Law).
Expected to play out in future episodes, which will debut in February, Emily's return has no doubt come as a welcome surprise, but why did she leave in the first place? And how long can we expect her to stay? Here's what we know…
Why Emily Wickersham left NCIS
Joining her former co-stars, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly, on the podcast, Off-Duty: An NCIS Rewatch, Emily revealed why she decided to exit the long-running series. "I was ready to leave the show. It was time, and I was ready to move on to something else, and I guess this was the something else I was meant to move on to. So it was good," she explained.
© CBS Photo Archive, Getty ImagesThe "something else" that Emily refers to is motherhood, given that just one month after she departed NCIS, she discovered that she was pregnant with her first child. The TV star, who is married to 1923 actor James Badge Dale, welcomed her eldest son, Cassius, in December 2021. As of 2025, the couple have since added to their family with the arrival of their youngest son, Zephyr, in October 2024.
While Emily felt it was the right time to say goodbye to NCIS, she made a point of penning her gratitude on Instagram. Back in May 2021, the actress wrote: "Hanging this hat and jacket up. What a great ride it's been. This cast, this crew, are top notch. I can't say enough kind words about this group that I've had the pleasure of working with for close to 8 years now, and 172 episodes later.
"This business is finicky and weird and consistency is a rarity," she continued. "I've been lucky enough to be a part of a show where I got to show up and act and laugh and learn with wonderful people. A moment in time I surely won't forget. Thank you CBS and NCIS for including me in a part of television history. Time goes fast. Eat it up but chew slowly."
Emily's return to the hit show
Emily made a surprise comeback in the NCIS season 23 fall finale. After Jess Knight received her first mission from NCIS Elite, she quickly realised that Eleanor Bishop was her target, leading fans to question what exactly the character had been up to in the past few years. Speaking about Eleanor's return, NCIS showrunner Steven D. Binder told TV Line: I mean, [Bishop] was part of the pitch at the beginning of the season. You know, pie in the sky, this is what we'd like to do. We've been talking about it. Now we want to actually do this, and then whether or not it's going to happen, you don't ever really know, because timing is a big piece of it, and [Wickersham] lives, you know, not here anymore, so that makes it difficult.
© CBS Photo Archive"But she was game. She wanted to come back. I had a conversation with her... and she was gung ho. And that never faded throughout the process."
Asked how Eleanor's return will play out on screen, Steven noted that for now, she's only expected to appear in one episode. "We 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," he clarified. "So she's sort of back on the roster, so to speak. But we've done some very long arc stories that have run out. This is not going to be one of them. We're going to go right to what people want to see, and we're going to have some closure, although that may or may not be what people want to see. We'll find out."
