Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Sydney episode “Fire in the Hole” are ahead!
Tuuli Narkle’s Evie Cooper and Sean Sagar’s DeShawn Jackson have been entertaining to watch together on NCIS: Sydney. This was most recently shown on the 2025 TV schedule in this past Friday's episode, “Fire in the Hole.” While speaking with CinemaBlend, Sydney showrunner Morgan O'Neill explained why these characters make such a great pairing, and that included him referencing Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David from the original NCIS.
NCIS: Sydney, which airs on CBS in the United States and can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription, kicked off its second season last week with a major reveal about Mackey’s past and some more teases for the big bad will meet later in the season. In Season 2’s second episode, Evie and DeShawn snuck aboard a pirate-themed party ship that’d been taken hostage by the Sons of the Sovereign Soil, which had a bone to pick with the United State Navy’s presence in Australia. After viewing “Fire in the Hole” early, I asked O’Neill during my interview with him about what he liked most about writing these two characters together, and he started off by saying:
Look, Evie and DeShawn are… there's a whole bunch of templates for that sort of character dynamic across the franchise. DiNozzo and Kate, DiNozzo and Ziva back in the early days, are really good touch points for these two, because initially those relationships start out kind of antagonistic, in particular with, with Kate. It felt like we had brother and sister dynamics going on, which, in the context of an Australian and American working together, is extremely fun.
Tony and Kate did indeed have an amusing brother/sister dynamic, though that was sadly cut short when Kate was murdered in the NCIS Season 2 finale. Ziva David inherited her spot on the team in Season 3, and while they too would bicker like siblings in those early NCIS years, their relationship blossomed into something romantic by the time Ziva exited as a series regular in Season 11. Now these two have a daughter and will soon be leading their own streaming-exclusive spinoff, NCIS: Tony & Ziva.
Evie and DeShawn definitely fall under the sibling category in NCIS: Sydney, especially when it comes to the former poking fun at the latter. Morgan O’Neill continued during our conversation:
Evie's mission, apart from solving crimes and kicking ass, is obviously to do everything she can to get under DeShawn’s skin. She relishes how he makes himself such a target for her ambition to take the piss, as we say out here. And DeShawn's natural curiosity, and the fact that he’s this kind of American Paddington Bear character, makes him such a perfect mark for Evie.
DeShawn was injured during the events of “Fire in the Hole,” but when Evie, who can’t swim, tackled the main baddie off the ship before he could shoot JD and fell into the water, he dove into the water to rescue and resuscitate her. Something like that is bound to bring these two closer together, and O’Neill not only confirmed as much to me, but also mentioned that Tuuli Narkle and Sean Sagar get along splendidly:
Over and above the fact that the characters are such fun on screen, you can tell that Sean and Tuuli, who play those two characters, really, really vibe off one another. They have a lot of fun in those scenes because that's how they are in real life. So the more that that kind of personal chemistry sparks, the more we lean into it because there's an unending pool of fun to be had with these siblings bickering. They really care about one another, and I think you see the evolution across the season. And certainly in Episode 2, you can't help but feel like there is a real emotional bond between them, and that only gets stronger throughout the season.
New episodes of NCIS: Sydney air Fridays at 8 pm ET on CBS stateside, so as Season 2 progresses, we’ll see just how Evie and DeShawn become even tighter. Personally, I hope the two of them maintain their sibling-like dynamic rather than come anywhere close to where Tony and Ziva ended up.
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