NCIS Welcomes Back Tony DiNozzo In Season 24 Premiere — But Is He Sticking Around? (Plus, Grade It!)

"NCIS" brought back an old member of the team in the Season 24 premiere with the return of Michael Weatherly as Tony DiNozzo — and we're happy to say he's officially a member of the team again.

First, Tuesday's premiere has to clear up who got shot in that standoff between Nick and McGee's son Mateo. McGee shows up to the scene panicked, and he sees Nick is fine... but Mateo didn't get shot, either. Tony suddenly emerges from the ambulance with his arm in a bloody sling. Yep, he's the one who got shot! He heard from a hacker about a case involving NCIS and decided to investigate, and when he stumbled upon the standoff, Mateo shot him and ran. (He was "barely grazed," though, Tony insists.) 

Tony is in D.C. opening up a satellite office of his security firm Salus Mondiale — for now, he's stuck in a temporary work space with a bunch of old codgers — and his daughter Tali is in boarding school in Boston, he tells McGee and Nick, with Ziva working at a language institute nearby. Tony starts feeling nostalgic when he sees the NCIS office's orange walls again, but that quickly evaporates when LaRoche orders them to leave the building, since the case involves McGee's son. He has the authority, too: LaRoche has just been named the new NCIS director. (Ugh... oh, I mean congratulations?)

Parker and Jess are already complaining about LaRoche, who handed Nick a suspension, and they're hoping Mateo just got in over his head. They'll have to work the case off the books, with Tony's help. (It's not like they haven't done it before.) Kasie discovers that Mateo stole classified info on the Secretary of the Navy's security detail. Uh-oh. Soon enough, the Secretary's daughter Catherine is kidnapped and held for ransom — and the kidnappers killed her bodyguards with Mateo's gun. They want the Navy to release a certain file, and the Secretary wants to call in Tony to help. Parker pipes up that he already looped Tony in... and LaRoche warns Parker that if he goes over his head again, "you're done."

McGee tracks down Mateo at a diner, who admits he needed help forging documents when his mom went missing, and now the forgers want payback. They forced him to steal the info from NCIS, but he didn't know what he was stealing, and now he's horrified. LaRoche spots them at the diner and is about to send in a tactical team to extract Mateo, warning Parker not to get any agents involved. But Tony poses as a waiter and sneaks into the diner to warn McGee and Mateo. McGee leads Mateo out peacefully before the team can grab him, and Parker gloats that Tony isn't technically an agent. LaRoche doesn't appreciate the technicality, though. He asks for Parker's badge: "You're fired."

Mateo has a partial plate number for the kidnapper's car, and the file they're demanding only has a physical copy, so someone will have to comb through the dusty archives for it. That task falls to Nick and Jess, who have to deal with that kooky accountant Barbara before finding the file in an old cabinet. But it's just a simple request form for office supplies from 60 years ago. Why would the kidnappers want that?

Kasie searches the file for any hidden messages, but she's stumped. Tony, though, used the partial plate number to track the kidnapper's car to Baltimore Harbor, and Kasie could hear a dock buoy on the hostage video, so they peg the ship where Catherine is being held. Is it too simple, though? Tony thinks this could all be a diversion, like in the third "Die Hard" movie. (This man does love his Hollywood blockbusters, doesn't he?) LaRoche insists on sending a tactical team to storm the ship, including Nick and Jess, but Tony goes back to the room where they found the file — and he's greeted by men with guns. Yes, the ship was a distraction to keep the good guys away from the real prize: the cabinet the file was held in, which contains a hidden stash of diamonds.

Tony sniffed it out, though — thanks to his love of "The Goonies" — and just as the men with guns are about to snuff him out, Nick and Jess swoop in and save him. (Yeah, they wisely ditched LaRoche's wild goose chase.) Catherine is saved, Mateo's name is cleared, and Parker's job is reinstated. When Tony returns to his makeshift office, the Secretary of the Navy is waiting for him: "I put the wrong person in the director's chair. I shouldn't have let my first choice say no." 

Tony insists that the timing is all wrong, but the Secretary says this case made it clear. LaRoche is not the right guy: "You are." He says he would need to talk to Ziva, but the Secretary already knows Ziva pushed him to take the job in the first place. "Your country needs you," she adds — and besides, she already sent out a press release announcing him. Ladies and gentlemen... meet your new NCIS director.

Now it's your turn: Give the "NCIS" premiere a grade in our poll, and hit the comments to share your thoughts on Tony's return — and new gig.