The Real Reason Sasha Alexander's Caitlin 'Kate' Todd Was Killed Off On NCIS

Many characters have exited "NCIS" since CBS' hit procedural debuted in 2003, but some farewells have been more impactful than others. The departure of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) in Season 19 is arguably the most significant of the bunch as, until that point, he'd been the franchise's main player since its humble origins. That said, the decision to write Sasha Alexander's Caitlin "Kate" Todd out of the show in Season 2 is probably more heartbreaking, as she was killed off in shocking fashion by a sniper's bullet in the season finale. So what motivated the show's creators to end the character's life?

Being part of "NCIS" requires the cast and crew to work very long hours, and Alexander was feeling the burnout of working super long days, prompting her decision to exit the series. She went to "NCIS" co-creator Donald P. Bellisario "and said, 'I love this show, but I just can't work this hard,'" executive producer Charles Floyd Johnson told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023. "We were doing long hours. I don't think she wanted to leave the show — she just wanted a lighter workload."

However, while saying goodbye to popular cast members is always sad, Bellisario jumped at the chance to give Kate Todd a dramatic send-off.

"Bellisario was always a writer who went for the cataclysmic," Johnson remembered. "He went, 'Well, what if we kill her off?' Everybody goes, 'What?' And he went to her and told her, 'Good news — your workload is going to be lighter. But you're going to die.' It was the very last minute or two of the show — the shot through the head."

At the time, Kate's death certainly caught viewers off guard, as she was a major part of the series. What's more, the creators went to great lengths to make sure no one knew about it beforehand.

Discussing Kate's death with THR, executive producer Mark Horowitz revealed that the show's creators didn't want the news to leak before the episode had aired. As such, some heavy measures were taken to ensure no one spilled the beans, which ultimately contributed toward the dramatic nature of her demise in the eyes of the viewers.

"Only one script page of her being shot was ever printed, and they read it in person, and it was returned every time," Horowitz recalled. "The film was broken off from the rest of the film shot for that day. Also, we actually shot an alternate ending. Even my wife didn't know. We were watching the show, and [Kate] got shot, and she just jumped out of her chair."

The upside of Kate's "NCIS" exit is that it gave the show one of the truly shocking TV deaths of all time and added more stakes to the proceedings. What's more, all of the parties involved supported the creative decision, as Sasha Alexander was more than ready to bid farewell to the procedural. She went on to star opposite Angie Harmon in the popular TNT police drama "Rizzoli & Isles," so her career continued to thrive... even if Kate's didn't.