Austin Stowell & ‘NCIS: Origins’ Team Talk Gibbs & Lala’s ‘Significant Relationship,’ Franks’ File, and More

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the NCIS: Origins series premiere “Enter Sandman.”]

NCIS: Origins is telling a story about Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell in 1991, Mark Harmon narrating and briefly appearing in the premiere) that fans are completely in the dark about—and we start getting teases about that in the two-part opener.

“It’s hard not to bring them home with you. it’s hard not to bring them everywhere with you. The stories go where you go. Stories that got cut short. It’s our job to tell those stories, no matter how much they took from us,” Gibbs says in the closing voiceover for the first episode. “It was our job to get to an end we could live with, to tell an ending of justice, no matter the cost. But this one wasn’t like the others. This is a story I don’t tell. This is the story of her.” The camera then zoomed in on Gibbs’ teammate, Lala Dominguez (Mariel Molino).

“That’s going to be a really significant relationship for Gibbs, but there’s also the question of, why did he never mention her in the original show? We know that something significant happens with her, and we’re hoping to unravel that mystery as we go, but it is a very significant relationship for the Gibbs character,” co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal tells TV Insider.

We can’t help but wonder: Given this is a Gibbs for whom the losses of his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly are still fresh, what happens to him if he loses anyone he’s close to at this point? “Exactly. What happens?” Monreal says. “The stakes are high.”

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As Stowell points out, Gibbs is coming from the Marines and is used to looking after others. “You stand and fight for the person next to you, not for yourself,” he says. “They’re going into battle together all the time.”

He also notes that Gibbs and Lala are very similar. “They’re stubborn. They’re very smart. They’re driven. They are also a little bit insecure, and that insecurity will create inner turmoil that doesn’t allow them to fully express themselves,” Stowell shares. “And when they do, it comes out maybe in a way that the pot has boiled over and they say too much or they say something that’s maybe not entirely true and it’s only because they’ve bottled it up for too long. And when you have two people that aren’t saying the things that are really inside their hearts, I think it drives them further apart.”

The premiere also introduces a mystery involving two characters we previously met on NCIS: Mike Franks (now played by Kyle Schmid) and Vera Strickland (Diany Rodriguez). The FBI gave her what they needed to do their thing, a file on something.

Sonja Flemming/CBS

“It is a secret. He’s going outside of the job to acquire this file,” says Monreal. “I don’t want to say too much about what’s in the file because it’s a surprise, but it is something that we will unravel in upcoming episodes.” Co-showrunner David J. North adds it’s “a solo Franks project.”

What Monreal can say is “Franks and Vera have quite a history. They were partners before Franks got his team, so we will delve into that as well. But his relationship with Vera is, I think, more significant than it may seem on the surface at first.”

Also explored in the premiere is the fact that Gibbs failed his psych eval—something that Wheeler (Patrick Fischler) is none too happy about, but Franks defends his decision to add him to his team.

“This is another insecurity he’s going to have to deal with,” according to Stowell, who notes, “He wants to know everything. All he’s asking for is the truth right now. He’s on this mission for the truth and I think that’s something that lives inside him and in the Gibbs that we’ve already seen for 19 seasons. I think that is part of what drives him, ‘Just give me the damn truth. I’ll deal with the truth how I’m going to deal with it, but without it, I am lost.'”

Sonja Flemming/CBS

When it comes to Franks keeping it from him, Gibbs can understand that his boss is trying to do his best to protect him or help him move forward. “But failing a psych eval no matter the circumstances… Wheeler says it in that wonderful scene with Franks, he goes, ‘Hey, if my wife and daughter were murdered, I’d be crazy, too,'” Stowell recalls. “It’s just not something he’s accepted about himself yet, that it isn’t his brain that makes him crazy. It’s his circumstances in the moment. And of course he’s going through a lot. I mean, how many people do you know and their wife and daughter were murdered by a cartel and you weren’t able to say goodbye, you weren’t able to see them before they were put in the ground? It’s heavy, heavy, emotional stuff.”

He continues, “The fact that he’s even doing what he’s doing four months after is a testament to his inner strength and his perseverance and his drive for life for purpose to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”

Adds North, “We follow that thread, for sure, with the psych eval. Obviously this is Franks bending the rules to get the guy he wanted, and we dive into why he did that. Why is Gibbs the guy he wanted? We really see the history, the bond between Mike Franks and Gibbs.”

What are your theories about Lala and that file? Let us know in the comments section below.

NCIS: Origins, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS