The ‘NCIS: Origins’ Stories of Gibbs & Lala

For over 18 seasons, NCIS fans knew Leroy Jethro Gibbs (played with steadfast command by Mark Harmon) as the dedicated boss who was a man of few words. Then, in the mothership’s 19th season, he left behind his crime-solving life in D.C. for a peaceful existence in Alaska. Three years later, CBS debuted the outstanding prequel NCIS: Origins, with Harmon executive producing and narrating every episode and offering a side of Gibbs that no one ever could have predicted.

Now, after making two previous guest appearances, Harmon appears onscreen in all 10 episodes of Season 3. “This almost, to me, came off [my voiceover work] in a way,” he says.

As Gibbs looks back on his early ’90s days at NIS (rebranded as NCIS in the spinoff’s Season 2 finale), Austin Stowell has stepped into the character’s shoes. Following Harmon is no small task, but Stowell delivers an onscreen presence that captures both the heartbreak following the murders of Gibbs’ wife Shannon and daughter Kelly, and his determination to move forward with his new team — and possibly a new love interest in fellow agent Cecilia “Lala” Dominguez. As played by Mariel Molino, Lala quickly becomes a character vital to the heart of the series.

The prequel is framed around the “slow burn” story Gibbs never told: “the story of her.”

As Harmon points out, “I did 20 years of this show and never mentioned her name. There’s got to be a reason for that, and I look forward to finding out what that is.”

Showrunner David J. North exclusively tells TV Insider, “We will find out this season why Gibbs has never mentioned Lala.”

A staple of the NCIS franchise is how much the teams care about solving cases — and about one another. That remains true for Origins, where the cast’s genuine camaraderie shines through whenever they talk about working together.

“Austin’s been great. He’s worked his tail off,” Harmon praises his costar, recalling when he was cast. “He’s careful with his choices and a solid actor, and he wants so badly to do it right. He’s the right guy to try to take this on. It’s weighty.”

He also remembers Molino walking in the room for the initial meeting. “You talk about someone lighting up a room or an actor embracing a character and just transforming as they walk through the doorway,” he says. “I’m a big fan of hers, and she’s earned it.”

For Stowell and Molino, having Harmon onscreen for Season 3 is “incredible.”

“The crew refers to him as ‘The Man,’ and he has earned that title in every way, shape, and form,” Stowell says. “There’s something in the way he breathes. There’s something going on in his brain — watching him think, work through what should be the next step. He’s a joy.”

Molino agrees: “It’s such a skill how expressive he is without saying a single word, yet he has so much going on in his eyes and there is so much that you are just dying to know what he’s thinking.”

It isn’t just present-day Gibbs that the drama needs to unpack in the October 6 Season 3 premiere. The series left off last spring in the ’90s timeline with Gibbs and Lala finally sharing a kiss, while their teammate Randy (Caleb Foote) was kidnapped because of the case files he had been digitizing. With only 10 episodes this season, there isn’t room for filler.

“We don’t ever take a week off,” North says. “It’s jam-packed. Mark had a phrase for this season: ‘Grip it and rip it.’ We are going to throw everything at the audience — great storytelling, these great performances from these actors, and Mark Harmon. Can’t beat it.”

Grab Your Gear, Gibbs

Few details have been revealed about the present-day storyline involving Harmon’s Gibbs, but a mystery connects back to his ’90s Camp Pendleton days, with Randy’s kidnapping acting as the “genesis,” teases Molino.

According to North, “we just really felt like it was time” to bring this version of Gibbs back onscreen. After all, “you always want to bring Mark Harmon back to television.” As a result, his narration won’t be featured as heavily. While he’s still mostly bookending episodes, “it’s a real story throughout.”

Part of the inspiration came from fan reactions to the transition between Harmon and Stowell’s Gibbs during last season’s NCIS and Origins crossover. “I went to Mark and said to him, ‘Look at the reaction to this. Let’s see if we can do that every week,'” North says.

Both men share a long, deep respect for the character of Gibbs; the first NCIS episode North ever wrote was Season 2’s “Bikini Wax.” Once North spoke with executive producer Eric Christian Olsen (who played Deeks on NCIS: LA), fellow EP Sean Harmon (Mark’s son, who played young Gibbs on NCIS), and line producer Michele Greco, he pitched the story to Mark. The actor says that “good idea” made him eager to revisit Gibbs onscreen.

“Did I think I would be doing this a number of years ago when we went in to try to sell this? No, I didn’t,” Mark Harmon admits. “That was not in the plan. But to be there, and I think the character stuff that I’ve seen so far is challenging and good… I like these individuals. And I also like how David has worked that through line through what is basically a period piece. I’m enjoying being back.”

He adds praise for the showrunner: “David’s awfully good. As an actor, you’re driven by the idea of a challenge or a thought, and you like what it is or you think, ‘Wow, I don’t know. Can we make this work?'”

While he doesn’t know Gibbs’ full arc, that’s nothing new. “People think [NCIS] jumped off and was a hit from the beginning. It wasn’t,” he recalls. “It took years, and I remember those years and how hard everybody was working and trying to find the voice of not only the show but the characters as well and the different cast members that came and went.”

This season kicks off with ghosts from Gibbs’ past shattering that peaceful retirement he’s been enjoying in Alaska (yes, with his dog still by his side).

North is hesitant to spoil details, but notes: “There’s a serialized story that we’ll see in 1992, 1993, and it’s directly impacting what we’re seeing with Mark in present day. This is one of the most epic adventures that Mark’s Gibbs has ever been on. It’s full of twists and turns. It’s seeing Gibbs in a way that we’ve never seen him before.”

Familiar franchise faces will appear, and Gibbs will leave Alaska behind, including stepping back into the NCIS office. Having Harmon filming on that set again “felt surreal, incredible, hard to put into words,” says North. “It was like coming home. Mark is amazing in those scenes. The fans are going to lose their minds.”

Gibbs will also reunite with forensics analyst Woody (Bobby Moynihan, again in aged-up makeup). “In the early ’90s storyline, we’ll learn that Woody owes Gibbs a favor, and Gibbs collects when he needs help in the present day,” the EP reveals, hinting that the case involves a murder. “Bobby Moynihan’s performance as both Young Woody and Old Woody is really awesome. It’s so much fun.”

Moynihan raves about getting to work with Harmon: “I have loved Mark Harmon since Summer School. I can’t believe I got to work with him, nonetheless as Gibbs. Truly iconic.”

As for Woody’s dynamic with present-day Gibbs, expect the familiar rapport to remain intact. “Woody gives the handsome boy a hard time, but he loves him more than he knows,” Moynihan shares. “It was fun to do scenes with both Gibbs in one week. You really see how amazing Austin is at his job.”

However, Gibbs returning to “civilization” isn’t done lightly, warns North. “He’s at peace in Alaska. That was one thing that Mark and I always agreed on: Alaska is the place he wanted to be. And so for him to leave, something really big must have happened.”

Harmon’s onscreen return arrives at a pivotal narrative moment, just as Stowell’s Gibbs is evolving into the man fans recognize. “We’re really seeing Austin’s Gibbs become that leader we know he becomes,” says North.

Stowell adds, “I think it’s going to be incredible for audiences to see how our ’90s Gibbs and present-day Gibbs are so connected, and it continues to fill in the whys and the unpainted picture that was so present throughout the mothership. It was always, why does he act this way? Why are there so many walls when it comes to this guy’s privacy and certainly his romantic relationships, and why don’t they work out? … Mark is continuing that story — it doesn’t end in the river in Alaska; he does leave Alaska, there are people in trouble who need him to the level that he is willing to, again, break one of his own rules.”

Remember Rule 12?

There could be many reasons for Gibbs’ Rule 12 (“Never date a coworker”), but the fact that he never spoke about Lala until Origins — combined with the events of the first two seasons — suggests she played at least a role in its creation.

The two almost kissed in the Season 1 finale, when she put her career on the line when Lara Macy (Claire Berger) investigated Gibbs for killing his family’s murderer. Then came Lala’s near-death experience, Gibbs’ marriage to future ex-wife Diane (Kathleen Kenny), and her brief romance with Manny (Miguel Gomez), whom she almost followed into witness protection.

Season 2 ended with Gibbs and Lala finally sharing a cinematic first kiss in a scene straight out of The Bodyguard, of course set to “I Will Always Love You.” “I wanted you to ask me to stay,” she told him, and he did.

It wasn’t the first kiss Stowell or Molino envisioned for their characters. “I thought maybe it would happen in one of the boats or as I was maybe showing her how to fish,” Stowell says.

Molino had a different take: “This should happen when Gibbs and Lala are fighting with each other and in the middle of something tense, and things are just not going well. And then, of course, all that tension finally explodes, and they kiss, and they can’t keep their hands off of each other.”

She reveals she was so nervous she wanted to take a shot of tequila before filming, but writer Daniel Egbert stopped her, saying, “Don’t you dare take this moment away from Lala because Lala is completely sober in this moment and you need to feel everything she’s feeling. You don’t think she’s nervous? You don’t think she’s not ready for this?”

The ’90s timeline picks up right after the finale. “Right after that kiss, some events transpired that I can’t wait for everyone to see,” North teases. While he keeps their official relationship status under wraps, he promises, “Things will continue to advance. It does change things, but they will not want what happened between them — and what may or may not continue to happen — to affect their team.”

What matters most to Gibbs is that he “doesn’t get this one wrong,” Stowell says. “He feels so strongly about Lala. Gibbs is looking for solid ground, and she represents that. Gibbs finds comfort in her constantly. She doesn’t pull any punches. When she gives a compliment, she means it. When she does show affection, she means it. And so anything that she shows him, he knows is 100 percent genuine and that he needs to be careful with that. When somebody gives you the gift of love, you need to treat it preciously.”

Lala must also grapple with the fact that right before that kiss, she was ready to start over with Manny. “Lala was running away from Gibbs. Now, she’s running back into Gibbs, but she needs to know that whatever he’s feeling for her is real and true and not just the redhead of the year, even though I’m clearly not a redhead,” Molino notes. For Lala, “Gibbs is everything. Gibbs is the constant. Gibbs is the man in her life that has never betrayed her, has proven to be a protector, a supporter, a teammate, loyal to a fault, but also compassionate and patient. I don’t think Lala has ever really had a man in her life like Gibbs, and that’s really scary because he sees her for who she is and he’s not backing away.”

The Story of Her

The biggest overarching mystery remains Lala herself: Why didn’t Gibbs ever mention her, and what ultimately happened to her?

“When I’m doing the voiceover, and I’m saying things like, ‘This is the story of her,’ in a way, that’s news to me, too,” Harmon says, agreeing, “There’s a lot of things that are personal that he doesn’t talk about — that’s part of the character, I get it. But she’s special, and there’s lots of reasons for that.”

While viewers know Lala doesn’t become one of Gibbs’ ex-wives, her ultimate fate remains unclear. Of the Origins team, only Franks (Kyle Schmid on Origins, Muse Watson on NCIS), Vera (Diany Rodriguez, Roma Maffia), Woody (Moynihan), and Phil (Ely Henry) have appeared in post-’90s storylines.

If Lala is still alive in the present day, what caused their rift? “What the hell [has] she been doing the last 30 years?” Molino wonders. “What is her life? What has she become? How has she changed? Who has she loved? Who has she grieved?” (Stowell jokes in response: “If you are alive, I have one question: How dare you?”)

Alternatively, if Gibbs never spoke of her because of a tragic end, Molino asks, “How did it go so wrong that this story has haunted this man for 30 years?”

Harmon points out there are many reasons relationships end. “Some of that obviously will be defined in the storyline,” he says. “[The way Gibbs] was written, [there was] so much you didn’t know about. There was a lot of darkness in that character.”

Agent in Trouble!

In Season 2, Randy spent quite a bit of time digitizing the agency’s files. In the finale, after initial fears that Lala was being tailed, it was revealed the mysterious SUV was following Randy, and he was kidnapped because of his work.

The premiere addresses his fate. “The whole agency, once we realize Randy’s gone, really rallies together. It’s all hands on deck to find this guy,” says North. “Randy is so beloved, he’s so bubbly, so wonderful that it’s tough to see a character like that in danger, but it’s fun to see how the team rallies for him.”

Molino adds, “That’s our boy! That’s our Bernard Randolf.”

It creates a high-stakes situation where personal issues take a backseat. “We put aside everything,” Stowell says. “What has drawn Gibbs and Lala together is our loyalty to the team. In moments like this, we are willing to sacrifice anything for one of them. Don’t touch our guy.”

After all, Marines never leave a man behind.

NCIS: Origins, Season 3 Premiere, Tuesday, October 6, 10/9c, CBS