Did This NCIS: ORIGINS Episode Just Change Gibbs’ Story?

Published: March 12, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

NCIS: ORIGINS Season 2 mid-season return could bring about a new ending to Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ story.

“In ‘Fools Rush In,’ Mike Franks’ (Kyle Schmid) NIS team investigates a bombing at a movie theater, linking it to Abe Pruitt (Christopher Backus), who owns the Range,” Comic Book Resource said.

“The installment also contends with the fallout of younger Gibbs’ (Austin Stowell) decision to marry his girlfriend, Diane (Kathleen Kenny), in Las Vegas,” the outlet continued. “When Gibbs gets called in with a hangover, he must explain his impulsive decision to the team, which causes another quiet yet notable rift between Leroy and Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino), adding weight to their unfulfilled romance.”

As Gibbs and Lala juggle new romances — Gibbs with Diane and Lala with Manny — alongside their feelings for each other, older Gibbs’ narration by Harmon comes in, saying of Diane, “I wasn’t lying when I said I loved her. Sometimes, a person shows up, right place, right time. It’s easy. It’s simple.”

But CBR suggests, “the quote also speaks to Leroy’s perspective on how those romances will play out, with Harmon’s older, wiser Gibbs implying that they won’t last.”

“Right place, right time, exactly what you need. That’s one kind of love,” older Gibbs continues. “But it only complicates the kind of love that lasts forever.”

This could mean that his and Lala’s “forever love” could bring them back together outside of ORIGINS’ 1990s setting, “putting love back on the table for an isolated Gibbs and creating a memorable ending to his story” after the character departed in NCIS Season 19.

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ORIGINS showrunners Gina Lucita Monreal and David North said last fall that they weren’t eager to see Lala go.

The Season 1 finale saw Lala “unconscious following a car accident.” However, the first episode of Season 2 revealed that “Lala survived the fateful car crash.” But the accident drew a “wedge between her and Gibbs, after the story picked up two months after the accident, with Lala about to return to work as the team struggled without her and Randy, who had been thrown into desk duty.”

“We always knew that we were bringing Mariel [Molino who plays Lala] back. We love her, the team and the season wouldn’t be complete without her,” Monreal told The Wrap. “We always knew she was coming back, but it was a bit of a puzzle trying to put that opening together and place everybody, to remind people where we left them and where they are now. That particular opening took a bit of brain power to put together, but we’re really proud of how it turned out, and Niels Arden Oplev just knocked it out of the park with his direction. We’re so excited for people to see it.”

“I think part of the reason that everyone believed she was dead is because ‘It’s the story of her and’ all of that,” North added. “Coming back this year is obviously about dealing with the repercussions of being in an accident like that, both the emotional side and the physical side. She has a TBI, and we’ll see her battling symptoms of that, but also picking up the pieces and moving on in her own personal life after the almost kiss with Gibbs in the pool. She’s got a lot to deal with.”

Do you think Gibbs and Lala still have a future together?

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