Is Jessica Knight Stepping in for Ellie Bishop on 'NCIS'?

Television shows hope to build up a following of dedicated viewers who invest in the characters and tune in weekly. CBS’s NCIS is one of the longest-running shows on the network, achieved because they have characters that fans continue to root for.

Since that it’s entering its 19th season, fans want to know who replaced Ellie Bishop (Emily Wickersham) now that she’s left the show at the end of last season. It's hard to say goodbye, but who has the creative team pegged to fill her shoes?

Agent Ellie Bishop is one of the fans' favorite characters on the show. She’s been on the series since 2013 — formally an NSA analyst turned NCIS special agent. We tuned in weekly to see her relationship with fellow agent Nicholas Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) develop over the seasons.

Fans finally got what they wanted at the end of Season 18. Bishop and Torres revealed to each other that their chemistry that we’ve been drowning in for seasons was real. At last, Ellick was going to happen.

But just as we got to that romantic goodness, Bishop left the team behind for good. The agent found herself in a web of drama when she was implicated in an NSA leak from a decade ago.

She surprised her team members when she admitted to being at fault, and she walked away. Or so it would seem. In reality, her plot to become a disgraced agent worked, allowing her to go on an undercover operation.

Emily, the actress behind Bishop, spoke about her leaving the show, and while she didn’t get into specifics on why she left or how that all went down, she made it seem like it was her decision. Sharing to Instagram, Emily explained, “I can’t say enough kind words about this group that I’ve had the pleasure of working with for close to eight years now and 172 episodes later.”

She continued, “This business is finicky and weird and consistency is a rarity. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of a show where I got to show up and act and laugh and learn with wonderful people.”

With her out of the show, and the showrunners knowing that they clearly had a good thing going with Bishop, it seems they planned around Emily’s decision to leave and introduced a new character who will replace Bishop: Agent Jessica Knight (Katrina Law).

Fans loved Bishop and the romantic drama she had with Torres. So it’s no surprise that Agent Jessica Knight, who made an appearance toward the end of Season 18, gives off Bishop vibes, and Torres noticed her, too.

While we didn’t get a whole lot of time to see how she was going to jive with the rest of the characters on the show, what we did see gave fans a whole lot of hope. With Bishop gone (and Gibbs missing), the show will need to have some strong personalities to keep fans watching.

Season 19 of NCIS airs on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m. EST.