Warning: This article contains detailed plot information from tonight’s episode of NCIS. Proceed with caution.

Cote de Pablo knew fans were excited to see tonight’s episode of NCIS , which found Tony (Michael Weatherly) and Ziva (Cote de Pablo) heading to Berlin in order to track down her father’s killer. While there, the partners shared a number of moments that will likely go down as some of the best “Tiva” moments of all time. (More on that in a bit.) But meanwhile there was a cliffhanger fans didn’t see coming…That crash!

Yes, after sharing one of those unforgettable moments, Tony and Ziva were sideswiped by a black vehicle, and their status remains unknown. Also, Ilan Bodnar remains on the loose (but his brother, Yaniv, is in custody).

While we’re pretty sure they’ll both make it out alive (emphasis on: pretty sure), we asked de Pablo for a tease on what’s next. “We are one step closer to the killer who took away Eli David and Jackie Vance, so I think the audience wants some sort of resolution,” de Pablo said coyly. “I don’t know if we’re going to get to the actual unfolding of it completely [by the end of the season].”

It wouldn’t be unlike NCIS to let the mystery bleed into next season, but nevertheless, there are more shocking moments on the way, she said, including a few between Tony and Ziva, for whom she teased some “messy” times ahead.

But things were anything but rocky for them in this episode. They sorta held hands (darn that crash for breaking the moment), shared some deep words, and had a dance, which EW was the first to show you. The actress calls the latter one of her favorite scenes in the episode. “Michael and I crafted that scene,” she shares. “We felt the moment was very intimate, and we thought that just looking at each other was enough. And the director kept saying, ‘No, I want the moment to be longer,’ and we had to sort of fight the director. Finally, I had to say, ‘Listen, if there was any more time of staring into each other’s eyes, it would be like, cut to a hotel room.’…so finding the length of the moment became a topic.”

In the end, she says, “we certainly enjoyed it.” “I told [Tony] — without really realizing what I was saying and then I realized it came out the wrong way — I said, ‘God, I felt a little drunk when I was staring at you.’” she adds with a laugh. “I’m not sure if it was because by the end of the day we were both so tired or if it was because it was just such a magical moment.”

While de Pablo remains reluctant to define the pair’s relationship too clearly — she prefers to call it “complex” — she says the entire episode was a chance to see the characters show new sides of themselves to one another. “There is a level of vulnerability that’s being shared and, from Tony’s standpoint, you also see vulnerability. You also see him as a man Teddy Bear — like, a very sweet but manly man, a guy who’s really taking care of a situation and really wants to make it better, a guy who’s not looking for the joke or is uncomfortable staring at a woman or reaching out to hold her hand. To me, that’s a really interesting thing.” she says. “We usually see the woman from Ziva and the boy from Tony, and here we see the little girl in Ziva and the man from Tony.”

For more on NCIS, including some teases from executive producer Gary Glasberg, pick up this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands Friday.

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