NCIS Is Losing Another Cast Member with Maria Bello’s Exit
Maria Bello
The revolving door of cast changes on CBS’s No. 1 drama continues with Maria Bello set to leave NCIS in Season 18, at the end of her three-year contract, Deadline reports.
Bello began her tenure in Season 15, playing forensic psychologist Jacqueline “Jack” Sloane. If NCIS hadn’t been forced to wrap as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bello would have exited at the end of Season 17, but with the shortened season, she owes the series more episodes. Plus, this will give the writers and producers time to plan her exit.
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Maria Bello as NCIS Special Agent Jaqueline "Jack" Sloane, Mark Harmon as NCIS Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs
As part of Jack’s storyline, she was reunited with the daughter that she gave up at birth, Faith Tolliver, who works as a doctor in a Navy hospital. Initially, Faith wanted nothing to do with her birth mother, but then she returned to obtain medical information from her mother and find out who her biological father was as she was undergoing fertility treatments. As a result, there was a bit of a rapprochement. Jack leaving NCIS to be closer to her daughter could be an excellent way of writing her out. We won’t find out if that is what the show has in mind until Season 18 begins.
https://parade.com/1024269/paulettecohn/ncis-cardea-gina-monreal-interview-season-17-final-episode/
Season 18 will also see the airing of the series' 400th episode. NCIS had been set to air its 400th during Season 17, but instead it ended with episode 398. When the show returns, showrunner Frank Cardea told Parade.com that they will keep the 400th episode as planned.
“When we come back into production again, that’ll probably be shot first,” he said. “Assuming everybody’s well and all the actors are available, we will shoot it then. There are two other scripts right behind it that we’re close to getting ready to go and they’ll probably be shot in that order, and then we have a lot of flexibility to begin the new year. Because we have such lead time, we can air the first five or six in almost any order we want, and we’ll make that decision after the episodes are shot.”
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