Is ‘NCIS’ Setting Up a Bishop & Torres Romance in Season 17?

Meredith Jacobs October 23, 2019, 11:30 am

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 17, Episode 5 of NCIS, “Wide Awake.”]

Will Bishop (Emily Wickersham) and Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) be the new Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo)? And by that we mean, will NCIS draw out a potential relationship between two teammates for years, with meaningful glances, moments, and such, only to continue to pull back before it can go anywhere?

That may very well be the case, with “Wide Awake” featuring yet another tease that those two could be more than just partners. While trying to determine if a Marine Corporal had been hypnotized to kill, Dr. Grace Confalone (Laura San Giacomo) sets out to show that someone could be influenced to do something they wouldn’t normally by hypnotizing Bishop. It doesn’t work on her, but it does on Torres. While he’s under, he sings a Beyoncé song, gives Bishop his knife, eats an apple fritter, and writes Bishop a letter.

He doesn’t remember doing any of that; “nobody touches my blade,” he says, and he thought he was eating a protein bar. As for the letter, we may never find out exactly what he wrote (Bishop refuses to let even him read it). However, she does tell him it was full of “personal stuff” and “very touching.”

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And there is an awkward moment as the two translate in unison what “gnsdily” means in texts between their victim and a person of interest in the case: “Good night, sweet dreams, I love you.” They could have easily moved past that, but instead, they feel the need to explain to Gibbs (Mark Harmon) and McGee (Sean Murray) that it’s not strange they both know that. “It’s a common texting shorthand,” Bishop insists, with Torres adding, “very common.”

Furthermore, we have to look back at Ziva’s advice to Torres in “Into the Light”: “Don’t be a wuss. Tell her how you feel.” Though he doesn’t share what she told him with Jack (Maria Bello), he did say that her words were enough to distract him during their fake fight. And it clearly meant something — perhaps at least enough to stay with him and influence what he wrote in that letter? (That is, of course, assuming he wrote it and/or Bishop wasn’t lying about what was in it.)

(CBS)

Whatever happens next, let’s just hope it doesn’t take years (and one of them leaving) for NCIS to fully address what might be between Bishop and Torres.

NCIS, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS