‘NCIS’ Character Dies in Unexpected Turn of Events

NCIS’s latest episode featured a shocking turn of events for one character in particular. As Just Jared noted, the episode proved to be quite an emotional one as Tobias Fornell’s daughter (Joe Spano) died. Fornell’s daughter, Emily, has dealt with addiction over the past several seasons. But fans were shocked to see that her addiction was, ultimately, the cause of her death.

At the end of the episode, Fornell made a devastating call to Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) to inform him that his daughter Emily was rushed to the hospital after experiencing an overdose. Fornell explained that he found his daughter at home surround by pills. She was subsequently transported to the ER for treatment. However, Emily died following the overdose, which came as a major shock to NCIS viewers everywhere. Following Emily’s tragic passing, Fornell found out that Director Leon Vance (Rocky Carroll) read a poem aloud called “Epitaph” that Merritt Malloy wrote.

Unfortunately, the current season of NCIS has dealt with a great deal of loss. In addition to Emily’s passing, Jimmy Palmer’s wife (Brian Dietzen) died due to COVID-19 complications. After the episode aired in which Palmer’s wife died, Entertainment Tonight published an interview with Dietzen in which he spoke about the tragic update concerning his character. He told the publication that the show informed him that this situation would take place as they wanted to have viewers see the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic could have on the NCIS team.

“I had been told that this was going to happen, that Jimmy was going to lose his wife before I received this script,” the actor told ET. “The producers let me know that we want the advent of COVID to hit our team. And yet, we don’t want to lose a team member. So the prospect of having Jimmy lose his wife, the most optimistic team member lose someone, came to the table and they thought it would be a great storytelling mechanic — albeit very, very sad. So they went ahead with it. I was notified ahead of time and prepared for it, I suppose, emotionally.” Disclosure: PopCulture is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.