‘NCIS’ Kicks off Season 19 With the Search for Gibbs (PHOTOS)

While fans may know that Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) survived his boat exploding in the Season 18 finale, it sounds like the NCIS team is going to be a bit in the dark about just what’s going on when the fall season begins. Fortunately, Pam Dawber is returning as investigative journalist Marcie Warren, and she can clue them in on some of what they don’t know.

“As the NCIS team searches for Gibbs after wreckage from his boat is discovered, they find out he was tracking a serial killer with journalist Marcie Warren (Pam Dawber), who wrote an exposé on him,” the logline for the NCIS Season 19 premiere, “Blood in the Water,” reads. And that episode title has us a bit worried!

After all, while we did see him swimming away after his boat exploded in the final moments of Season 18, prior to that, we did wonder if the episode would end with him still floating in the water. And even though he’s alive, who knows if he’s injured?

When NCIS returns, the team won’t just be down Gibbs (who was still suspended at the end of Season 18). Emily Wickersham has left, with Ellie Bishop off on an undercover assignment. But Special Agents Timothy McGee (Sean Murray) and Nick Torres (Wilmer Valderrama) will have help from Jessica Knight (Katrina Law, now a series regular), with whom they worked after she lost her entire REACT team.

Scroll down for a look at “Blood in the Water” as the team searches for Gibbs.

NCIS, Season 19 Premiere, Monday, September 20, 9/8c, CBS