With NCIS at present airing its twenty second season on the 2024 TV schedule, this can be a present that’s been round for therefore lengthy that lots of its essential characters, whether or not we’re speaking from the primary solid or those that recurred, have lengthy been absent. Within the latter class, Muse Watson, who performed Mike Franks, Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ mentor, appeared in 20 episodes throughout the CBS present’s third to fifteenth seasons. Nonetheless, these later appearances had been Franks in ghost type, as he met his finish in the direction of the tip of Season 8. Jesse Stern, the author who killed Franks off, mirrored about how proper earlier than he was instructed to take character off the board proper earlier than, which occurred proper earlier than he left NCIS.
Jesse Stern labored on NCIS from 2004 to 2011, writing 33 episodes over that stretch of time, in addition to being promoted to numerous producer positions. He talked about this chapter of his skilled life on Off Responsibility: An NCIS Rewatch with hosts Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo, who respectively play Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David within the NCIS-verse. When Weatherly introduced up Stern’s penchant for killing off essential NCIS characters and particularly talked about Mike Franks’ demise scene, main Stern to say:
Oh my God, that was a type of ones. Gary Glasberg, relaxation in peace, handed me that task. He mentioned, We’re going to kill Mike Franks.’ And Franks hadn’t been in an episode that season. And I used to be similar to, ‘Are you kidding? We’ll convey the man in simply to kill him off.’ I am like, ‘Everybody’s going to see it coming. It isn’t the best way to do it.’ So I attempted to speak him out of that call, however he was decided that we had been going to kill Mike Franks. So I used to be like, ‘Okay, effectively, if I will do it…’ That was my final script. I used to be like, ‘If I will do it, I will do it in a swan music.’ I’m going to do it in a method you do not see coming and I will do it in a method the place the actor can come again.
Following his look within the NCIS Season 8 premiere, which was tied to his involvement within the Season 7 finale, Mike Franks returned in Season 8’s penultimate episode, “Swan Music”. Whereas stepping exterior of Gibbs’ home in the midst of a wet night time, Franks observed recurring antagonist Jonas Cobb, a.okay.a. the Port-to-Port Killer, out on the street and tried to apprehend him, however was fatally stabbed. Franks received a full navy funeral within the Season 8 finale (which was the final episode Stern labored on), and it was additionally revealed in that episode that he was already dying of most cancers, therefore why Gibbs was constructing him a coffin.
Whereas Jesse Stern initially wasn’t on board with killing off Mike Franks when the late Gary Glasberg instructed him to take action, he ended up making one of the best of the scenario and delivered what I take into account to be the most effective demise scenes in NCIS. The excellent news is that, as talked about earlier, this didn’t mark the tip of Muse Watson’s involvement with the present, as Gibbs would often see his deceased pal in ghost type. Watson final appeared as Franks within the Season 15 episode “Voices”.
Though the older Mike Franks’ time on NCIS has lengthy since concluded, the youthful model is at present being performed by Kyle Schmid on NCIS: Origins, which airs Mondays at 10 pm ET on CBS after new episodes of NCIS. Stream each reveals, and the remainder of the NCIS franchise, together with your Paramount+ subscription.