Like Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Michael Weatherly’s Tony DiNozzo and the late David McCallum’s Donald Mallard, Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto was introduced to the world in 2003 in the JAG two-parter “Ice Queen” and “Meltdown” before NCIS premiered a few months later. Perrette played the goth forensic scientist for 15 seasons on the popular CBS series, and there’s a complex story behind why she left NCIS. However, Abby might have been depicted a lot differently during that decade and a half had Perrette not spoken up after telling a dirty joke onscreen.
In an interview with Hello!, where she also revealed that she’ll never return to acting, Pauley Perrette recalled how she prompted major change in Abby Scout’s characterization following one of NCIS’ earliest episodes, despite the fact that she “had no right to do so.” As the actress explained:
In one of the first episodes, there was a really dirty joke – and I never understand dirty jokes or double entendres – and I didn't know what it meant, and it aired and I was horrified, not only because of my own blaring naiveté, but because I just told a filthy joke on camera, and it's just not what I do. And that's who they wanted Abby to be in the beginning: there were parts of her that were going to be really saucy and sexual and I said, 'No, there's a better way to do this,' and as that notion was being formed, that's when I started realizing the power of her being good.
If Pauley Perrette had been someone who didn’t mind telling dirty jokes or double entendres while playing a character, then maybe this aspect of Abby Sciuto’s personality would have remained over the course of 15 seasons. But because Perrette shared her concern, despite the fact that NCIS was still in its infancy and she’d only just started playing Abby, she succeeded in having this element removed, thus giving Abby more of that good girl image she brightly presented week after week. It certainly wasn’t the first time a TV character has been tweaked early on in a show’s run, and it definitely hasn’t been the last.
When Abby was last seen in the NCIS Season 15 finale, she had resigned from the title law enforcement agency so that she could accompany the body of her late colleague Clayton Reeves, who died protecting her from being killed by a hitman, back to England and to start a charity for the homeless on behalf of him and his mother. Because Perrette doesn’t want to act again, clearly we shouldn’t expect to see Abby reunite onscreen with colleagues/friends like Timothy McGee and Jimmy Palmer. However, we did get an Abby nod in the Ducky tribute episode earlier this year, so maybe there will come another opportunity for acknowledge her. Hopefully that would involve learning where she is and what she’s up to these days.
NCIS Season 22 premieres on the 2024 TV schedule on Monday, October 14, and the extra-sized launch of the prequel NCIS: Origins will follow immediately afterwards. Stream the entirety of NCIS and the other shows in the franchise with a Paramount+ subscription.