‘NCIS: Origins’ Casts 2 More Legacy Characters for Pride Episode: Meet Betts & McLane

Meredith Jacobs December 5, 2025, 12:00 pm

Joanna DeGeneres; Courtesy of Mark Deklin

What To Know

Adam Kulbersh and Mark Deklin have been cast as legacy characters for an upcoming NCIS: Origins episode featuring a young Dwayne Pride.
The episode will explore Pride’s early days as a probie out of the NIS Panama Office, his past tension with Gibbs, and their collaboration on an undercover case.
NCIS: Origins aims to delve into the backstories of beloved franchise characters, with this episode revisiting the origins and dynamics of the Fed Five in the 1990s.

The rest of the Fed Five have now been cast for the upcoming NCIS: Origins episode that will introduce a young Dwayne Pride (Shea Buckner, Scott Bakula on New Orleans).

TV Insider has learned that Adam Kulbersh will play NIS Special Agent Felix Betts (Stuart Margolin on NCIS in Season 11) and Mark Deklin has been cast as NIS Special Agent Dan McLane in one episode. See a photo of the Fed Five — which consists of Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell on Origins, Mark Harmon on NCIS), Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid, Muse Watson), Pride, Betts, and McLane — from the mothership’s two-parter, “Crescent City,” in 2014, which served as the backdoor pilot for NCIS: New Orleans.

Kulbersh’s Betts is “an auditor from the Los Angeles office who is brought in to Pendleton to help a new task force,” while Deklin’s McLane is “a highly revered veteran field agent working out of the Panama office [who] is called in by the Camp Pendleton team to lead a joint task force aimed at stopping a stolen weapons ring,” according to their character descriptions.

TV Insider exclusively broke the news that NCIS: Origins would be bringing in a young Dwayne Pride for a Season 2 episode in November. This Pride, a former Sheriff’s Deputy, is a probie out of the NIS Panama Office. He and Gibbs have met before, and this time when they cross paths, they have to resolve that past tension while they’re working undercover for a case.

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“One of the special things about NCIS: Origins is being able to explore the early days of so many beloved characters from the franchise,” co-showrunners and executive producers Gina Lucita Monreal & David J. North said in a statement alongside the news of young Pride being cast. “We’re excited to go back in time and meet the 1990’s version of New Orleans’ pride and joy, the legendary Special Agent Dwayne Pride, and learn more about his history with Gibbs.”

That two-part “Crescent City” kicked off with Pride’s team investigating McClane’s murder, leading to his reunion with Gibbs. By that time, the two have gotten past this past tension of theirs, with Gibbs telling his team that he knew Pride for 30 years, “trust him with my life. You can trust him, too.” That gave us a timeline of 1984 for when the two met. Those two episodes also revisited the case that made the Fed Five famous, the Privileged Killer, and it turned out that the real murderer was still out there — and McLane had known that and taken a bribe all those years ago.