Riding in a Lyft this morning, I heard a snippet of a radio story indicating that actress Pauley Perrette has left NCIS after 15 years. What was the in-story reason for her character’s departure?
After a brush with death and the death of a friend, she decided to do charity work.
The friend was a co-worker, an agent on loan to NCIS from MI6.
Don’t remember the name of the character, I believe he was only on NCIS for this season.
He died protecting Abby, turns out she was the intended target.
I think it was 2 seasons? In any case, he was intending to start a charity. He died to protect her. She decided to take up his charity work in his honor.
The character was Clayton Reeves. I kept wishing he’d have met Tony Dinozzo, who would have commented on the name being half Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore) and half Superman (George Reeves). He had wanted to start a charity to honor his mom, who died when he was three. Abby decided to take on the task herself.
IOW the door is still open for guest appearances.
Or McGee can be sitting at his desk next season and have Abby on Line 1 and Tony on Line 2, or having a conference call with them both.
Now that the OP question has been answered, does anyone know why the actress left the show in real life?
It is unclear:
It was said another place that it’s all Mark Harmon’s fault. He kept bringing his dog to the set and it kept biting people, so she felt unsafe.
I read that somewhere, and it totally did not ring true. Pauley is a huge animal rights activist, and I can’t see her being off-put by a dog.