WARNING: The following contains spoilers for NCIS Season 18, Episode 16, “Rule 91” The season finale aired on May 25 on CBS.
Ever since Gibbs was suspended for assaulting a suspect, the NCIS team members have been kind of spinning their wheels, like they were waiting for Gibbs to come back and take over like normal, and many fans have expected the same thing. However, the Season 18 finale shows that this remote Gibbs might be the new normal because the former lead agent has no intentions of coming back to NCIS.
“Rule 91” is all about Agent Bishop leaving NCIS. While investigating a case, the team uncovers classified NSA documents. After some investigating, it is determined that Bishop was the one who had leaked the file when she was still at the NSA over ten years ago. With espionage charges coming, Bishop admits to the crime, quits her job and appears to move on. There is a twist, though. At the end of the episode, Bishop reveals that she only needs to appear like a disgraced NCIS agent. In reality, she has been working with Odette, Ziva’s friend, to become a spy. Now, she is ready to begin her first assignment.
Along the way, Bishop has two telling conversations with Gibbs that reveal as much about his future as hers. The first happens in Gibbs’ basement. He is painting the name Rule 91 on his boat when Bishop comes down to talk to him. She is mad, not at Vance but at Gibbs. She is angry about how he stayed away from NCIS. She knows that he could have been reinstated if he had only shown a little bit of remorse. More than that, though, she is mad about how he disappeared from everyone’s lives. By the end of the heated conversation, Bishop can see right through Gibbs. She asks, “You’re never coming back, are you?” Gibbs doesn’t even try to deny it because he knows it's true.
Later in the episode, Gibbs calls Bishop, and they have a much better talk where Gibbs tells Bishop that he is proud of how she is following her gut. Before they hang up, Bishop remembers the name that Gibbs was painting on his boat earlier in the episode and asks him what Rule 91 means. He tells her, “You’re living it. When you decide to walk away, don’t look back.” While the line was directed at Bishop, it also implicates Gibbs. He painted the name on his boat, so it must have significance. It's indicative of how Gibbs has been behaving by cutting NCIS out of his life. Going forward, it seems like he is not going to let himself look back at NCIS in the slightest.
Between Bishop’s conclusion and the name that Gibbs chose for his boat, it looks like Gibbs has zero desire to return to NCIS. He seems perfectly content to move on and do something else because he is clearly focused on working on his boat and with Marcie. So far, during his suspension, he has saved Phineas again and been helping Marcie with a private investigation of a serial killer. Mark Harmon is already signed on for Season 19, so maybe he will continue his work with Marcie, or maybe he will help Bishop with some off-screen undercover work. Either way, it seems like he’s moved onto new, if not greener pastures, and fans will have to get used to Gibbs not being involved in the weekly NCIS investigations when Season 19 starts.
NCIS stars Mark Harmon, Sean Murray, Emily Wickersham, Wilmer Valderrama, Brian Dietzen, Diona Reasonover, Rocky Carroll, David McCallum. NCIS Season 19 will debut this Fall on CBS.