11 Memorable Abby Sciuto ‘NCIS’ Moments Now That Pauley Perrette Won’t Return (PHOTOS)
Abby took down Chip (“Frame Up,” Season 3, Episode 9)
Tony (Michael Weatherly) might have been the one Chip (Michael Bellisario) framed, but it was Abby who was involved in the final confrontation with him because she wouldn’t stop investigating. Though the team hurried to her lab upon realizing the danger she was (potentially) in, by the time they arrived, she’d already taken care of him.
She took down her stalker (“Bloodbath,” Season 3, Episode 21)
The team originally suspected her ex-boyfriend, against whom she’d had to get a restraining order, but it turned out that the person following her had been hired by the man she was testifying against. She took down the hitman by herself, using items the others had given her for protection (brass knuckles and a taser) and even took the time to warn him, “don’t look up my skirt.”
She helped a dog accused of murder (“Dog Tags,” Season 5, Episode 13)
While the team suspected the dog of killing his owner, Abby insisted Jethro, as she named him, was innocent, even when the evidence suggested otherwise. And she was right: the dog was being framed.
Abby helped lure out the traitor (“Cloak,” Season 6, Episode 8)
When the agency learned one of its own was a traitor, it was Abby who helped set the trap. As she assured McGee, she was innocent “as a puppy — the kind of puppy you would send into the bushes to make all the birds fly out so you could shoot them.”
She confronted Sergeant King (“Toxic,” Season 6 Episode 21)
Abby took over a top-secret government project after the scientist working on it disappeared. She then learned the man she’d been playing chess with — and thought was a patient — was actually the bad guy. She joined the team in arresting him, and he wondered what he did wrong. “You made me care about you,” she said.
She met her brother (“Enemy on the Hill,” Season 9, Episode 4)
While planning to donate a kidney, Abby learned that her brother was also on the list — and it wasn’t Luca. After she met Kyle, she figured out she was adopted. She ran a DNA test on her mother’s hair in her locket, and it wasn’t a biological match.
Flashbacks to Abby’s first case (“Hit and Run,” Season 10, Episode 13)
It only took 10 seasons, but we finally saw how it all started for her. As a child, she wondered how a car was wrecked. She found a teddy bear inside and tracked down its owner. While it wasn’t entirely a happy ending, she did help the young girl.
She used her brains to stop the bad guys (“Lockdown,” Season 13 Episode 5)
While visiting a pharmaceutical company’s lab as a consultant, Abby found herself in the middle of a hostage situation. She managed to get a message to the team, take down the armed men, and figure out the woman she’d been working with the entire time was involved.
We finally met Luca (“Sister City, Part 1,” Season 13, Episode 12)
Though we met Luca earlier in flashbacks, we finally got to see him as an adult (played by Tyler Ritter) in this crossover with NCIS: New Orleans. As Abby explained, “I look on the bright side, but I acknowledge the fact that there is a dark side. You are just all sunshine.”
Abby won the rematch with King (“Two Steps Back,” Season 15, Episode 22)
Abby faced off with King twice — and won both matches. After learning he was the one who targeted her (and therefore was responsible for Reeves’ murder), she took him down again and did so in style, making him think she’d put cyanide in his drink to get a confession.
Abby’s goodbyes (“Two Steps Back,” Season 15, Episode 22)
Before Abby left NCIS, she said goodbye to the team in her lab and to Gibbs (Mark Harmon) with a letter and “I love you” in sign language. Though she’d told McGee (Sean Murray) it wasn’t “goodbye for good,” it was.
Abby exited NCIS alive, which left the door open for a return, but her goodbyes were final, according to the actress who played her for 15 seasons.
Pauley Perrette tweeted on June 7, “NO I AM NOT COMING BACK! EVER!” presumably following multiple requests from fans to see her reprise her role.
Abby left two episodes before the Season 15 finale in “Two Steps Back,” after she was targeted by a man she previously helped put away. Reeves (Duane Henry) was killed as a result, and she was left behind to follow through on something he’d always wanted to do: start a charity in his mother’s honor.
Since that’s the last we’ll see of Abby, we’re looking back at some of her memorable moments over the years. Click through the gallery above to see TV Insider’s picks, and sound off in the comments below with yours.
NCIS, Season 17, Fall 2019, CBS
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