‘NCIS: Origins’: Mariel Molino Goes Inside Lala & Gibbs’ Major Romantic Moment (VIDEO)

NCIS: Origins takes its will-they/won’t-they couple and pretty much just drops them in the middle of a rom-com in the final moments of the Season 2 finale. TV Insider spoke with Mariel Molino about that and much more. Warning: Spoilers for the NCIS: Origins Season 2 finale ahead!

From the first episode of the NCIS prequel, it has been clear there’s chemistry and something between Gibbs (Austin Stowell) and Lala (Molino). But we also know canon, and Gibbs (Mark Harmon) never mentioned Lala. This is “the story of her,” the one he doesn’t tell, so anything could have happened. On Origins, they nearly kissed in the Season 1 finale, then in Lala’s dream earlier this season. But in the Season 2 finale, it finally happens, after Gibbs chases after Lala as she’s planning to leave NIS (now NCIS) and go join Manny (Miguel Gomez) in a small town. “I wanted you to ask me to stay,” she tells him. He does. With that, as “I Will Always Love You” plays, they kiss.

CBS

Lala’s “just unafraid to put her heart on her sleeve,” Molino tells us in the video interview above. “I think, especially when it comes to Gibbs, she’s so willing to go the extra mile with him. I think a lot of that has to do with how much she knows him; she knows the kind of pain he’s been through. And I think she just isn’t afraid to act on her feelings and the love that she feels for Gibbs. And you see that so evidently in this last scene. Even then, even after giving him so many chances to confess his feelings, she decides, ‘You know what? I can’t do this. I can’t really go through with this.'”

According to Molino, she thinks that Lala was driving out of San Diego before she returned home and joined Gibbs for that last scene. “She realizes there is that feeling inside of her that is telling her, ‘No, you’re making a mistake. Go back. There’s a bigger love that you’ve never explored,'” she says.

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Filming that last scene with Stowell was “very nerve-racking,” Molino admits. “We never knew when it was going to happen. We knew it would happen eventually, but we didn’t know. And it just kind of kept getting kicked to the next episode and then the next season. And so to finally have the moment and to even read on the script, Lala and Gibbs kiss is … I mean, it felt like the first day of school again. I was like, ‘Oh my God, here it is, all this pressure and it’s going to amount to this.’ And we wanted to make it so perfect for not only our characters, but for the fans. We know that everyone’s kind of been waiting for this moment. And so for it to be a true romantic Hollywood ending felt kind of perfect.”

Watch the full video interview above for much more from Mariel Molino about that Gibbs and Lala ending, Lala’s decision to leave NIS, her Season 3 hopes, her theory about where Lala is in the present, and the cliffhanger involving Randy (Caleb Foote).

NCIS: Origins, Season 3, Fall 2026, CBS