NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 ending explained: Why do Jonah and Martine want Aaron Graves dead?

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 puts the answer up front. Jonah and Martine want Aaron Graves dead because they blame him and his Reigning Fire drone empire for personal atrocities, and the hour trains both of their crosshairs on Paris while Tony and Ziva are used as cover.

Titled Dark Mirror, the episode drops the pair back into the city to track the double agents framing them and to pull the Graves thread that unraveled in episode 6.

Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo lead the cast, with James D’Arcy as Jonah and Nassima Benchicou as Martine, as the story frames Graves as a shadow boss who can weaponize drones and bureaucrats in equal measure.

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7: Why do Jonah and Martine want Aaron Graves dead?

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 answers the motive and the method at once. The motive is revenge for killings tied to Reigning Fire.

The method is a Paris operation that keeps Tony and Ziva within arm’s reach of every moving part while Jonah and Martine turn them into misdirection.

The hour opens with the leads reestablishing surveillance on the double agents who framed them, a task that forces Tony to split time between work and fatherhood while Ziva patrols their perimeter.

Their first pass through the city confirms that every road still points to Graves. That is when the vendetta sharpens.

Martine’s case is rooted in what she has seen. Children died when Graves’ people cleaned up someone else’s mess, and she has lived with that memory. Jonah’s case is a claim.

He says Graves cost him his family in the Balkans and that a brilliant brother paid the price when Reigning Fire scaled up deniable ops. NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 keeps those memories present as Tony and Ziva follow signals from the earlier hospital hack and a scavenged chip toward a Paris node that services Reigning Fire’s clients.

The camera bounces to Jonah and Martine staging their approach and arguing about collateral damage, a fight that reminds viewers Jonah crossed a line with Tali in the prior hour and still expects Martine to stay the course.

The middle stretch turns the city into a maze. Tony and Ziva trail supposed allies through hand-offs and dead drops and nearly blow their cover when a broker clearly reports up a different chain.

That near miss pays off the title Dark Mirror. False friends reflect true enemies. On the margins, the Lazar thread tightens.

The episode confirms the engineer from Bosnia was exploited to build the very drones that now let Graves erase problems at arm’s length.

That detail reframes Jonah’s crusade. If the drones are the instrument, then Reigning Fire is the orchestra pit, and Graves conducts without leaving fingerprints.

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 folds this into character beats. Tony keeps telling Ziva that if Graves is the hub, every bad thing spins out from there, which is why clearing their names now requires understanding the assassination map as much as the frame.

Martine hears enough of Jonah’s history to notice where the facts go foggy. She moves anyway. The job is already in motion.

By the final act, routes overlap. Tony and Ziva’s tail crosses Jonah and Martine’s path, and everyone orbits the same target. The heroes realize the frame will harden the moment the shot is taken.

That accelerates the ending: NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 sets Graves in the crosshairs and shows why the assassins cannot fully trust each other. Martine wants justice. Jonah wants an ending he can control, even if that means massaging the truth to keep her aligned.

The hour stops on the fracture that will matter most. Tony and Ziva can disrupt a kill, but they cannot fix the lie between the villains. Not yet.

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 ending explained: The Graves setup and the lie between villains

Jonah and Martine intend to assassinate Aaron Graves in Paris. They both carry grief that traces to Reigning Fire, but one of them is not telling the full truth.

Jonah’s backstory shifts when pressed, which signals a pragmatic manipulator as much as an avenger.

That matters because the plan uses Tony and Ziva’s frame as a smokescreen. If the hit lands, agency attention consolidates on the fugitives and buys the assassins time to slip away.

If the hit fails, the frame still deepens and Graves flushes enemies into the open.

NCIS: Tony & Ziva season 1 episode 7 uses that paradox to power its last scene. Tony and Ziva map the Paris grid well enough to see the funnel toward Graves, yet they also grasp that stopping the kill might be the only way to prove the frame.

The final beat leaves Martine clocking Jonah’s changing story and tightening her grip on the mission anyway.

Stay tuned for more updates.