You won’t be able to unsee it once you notice the actor’s untimely reaction.
If one day someone drops a survey asking NCIS long-standing fans about the show’s most disheartening scene ever, it will most likely get only one predominant answer regarding the sequence that features Caitlin Todd’s death in season 2.
The beloved character was carrying out a mission alongside her colleagues Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Anthony DiNozzo when she was shot dead by a terrorist hiding in the most invisible corner.
Twenty years after Caitlin Todd’s actress Sasha Alexander quit the show, she gave a sudden surprise to the series’ fans by reuniting with her NCIS co-stars Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, who played Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David respectively, for the actors’ brand new rewatch podcast dedicated to NCIS’ most memorable moments.
Now that it’s been quite some time since Caitlin Todd’s passing came as an utter shock to her colleagues and fans of the show, Weatherly unveiled one peculiar detail in the sequence, and it seems like this disheartening moment will never be the same again once you notice something weird in it.
In Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast’s second episode that featured Sasha Alexander as its guest star, Michael Weatherly revealed that he couldn’t resist making a goofy face right before the terrorist’s bullet killed Caitlin, but nobody actually noticed and the actor’s weird face expression did make it into the show.
According to Weatherly, his reaction was caused by a pretty real jeopardy of being covered with fake blood, as he was supposed to stand behind Alexander who at that moment had a blood pack on the back of her head.
As Weatherly explained further, “this is a little Easter egg for the people at home, if you watch, just before the dot appears that they digitally put there, but there’s a blood pack on the back of your head that [special effects coordinator] Larry Fuentes or whoever exploded, and blood goes all over my face. Larry was in front of me, so I flinch right before the blood comes, right before the dot. So I’m flinching before you get killed.”
The fact that the sequence was eventually approved by the show’s director in fact does confirm that Weatherly’s facial expression just went unnoticed by both the crew and the audience, though now that the actor revealed the whole truth, it will be hard to ignore when it comes to rewatching NCIS’ first seasons.
Still, Weatherly seems to have added some weird fun to the show’s tragic moment, and that may come as some kind of consolation to heartbroken fans.
