Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “From the Ashes” are forward!
When Kyle Schmid’s youthful Mike Franks was launched on NCIS: Origins, we additionally met the love of his life, Tonantzin Carmelo’s Tish Kwa’la. It was clear he thought the world of his girlfriend, and we finally realized how they met in 1982, however the truth that she had by no means been talked about earlier than when the Muse Watson-portrayed Franks appeared on NCIS didn’t bode properly. Positive sufficient, Tish broke up with Franks on the finish of “Monsoon,” and “From the Ashes,” the most recent Origins episode to air on the 2025 TV schedule, put a bittersweet button on their time collectively as Franks concluded his seek for Tish’s rapist.
As a fast refresher, Tish and Franks’ relationship got here to an finish when he admitted he lied about stopping his effort to seek out an apprehend the person who’d sexually assaulted her months earlier. Regardless of this, Franks continued his search, and it got here to a head in “From the Ashes,” which may now be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription. His staff was despatched to research the dying of Sergeant Joan Lewis, whose physique was burned throughout, and there was additionally proof that she’d been raped.
As a result of Joan was present in a parking storage and her driver’s license was lacking, that led Mike Franks to suspect that she was killed by the identical man who raped Tish, as he had the identical form of MO. Lengthy story brief, it wasn’t him. The true perpetrator was Raymond Garcia, the tow truck driver who was despatched to select up with Joan when her automotive broke down. Franks, Gibbs, Lala and Randy apprehended Garcia on the trailer park the place he lived and he confessed to murdering Joan. Oh, and her license hadn’t been stolen, it’d melted in her bag from the fireplace.
However all was not for nought in Mike Franks’ private case! The invention of Joan’s corpse led him to succeed in out to Daniel Oakley, Particular Agent in Cost Cliff Wheeler’s contact on the FBI, and he realized that they believed they recognized the person who raped Tish and varied different ladies was Anthony Prepare dinner. When Lala interrogated Prepare dinner at NIS in regards to the Joan Lewis case, he talked about how the evening she was murdered, he was at a diner miles away studying a ebook. That was true… properly, partially.
With assist from Vera Strickland and Mary Jo Hayes, the staff deduced that the diner the place Prepare dinner spent his time was throughout the road from a nursing residence, which simply go occurred to have his mom as one in every of its residents. The mom was simply cognizant sufficient to inform them what a “hateful baby” Prepare dinner had been, how her husband had left due to the boy, and the way she burned her son with a hair iron as soon as in self protection when he tried to assault her. Then they found the lacking driver’s licenses hidden in an image body within the aged girl’s room, together with Tish’s. For sure that Prepare dinner was then arrested for his heinous crimes.
Sadly for these of you who had been hoping that Franks and Tish would get again collectively after Prepare dinner was captured, it’s to not be. After studying that her rapist had been caught, Tish, who’d been staying along with her uncle Témet Téngalkat (the Chief Medical Examiner), left city, as she lastly felt free to pursue a brand new chapter of her life now that she knew her ex-boyfriend could be okay. She’s gone, and Franks regarded shocked when he realized this from Témet.
Clearly I do know Mike Franks goes to be okay in the long term, and for the sake of her psychological well being and emotional wellbeing, Tish in all probability made the proper name getting a recent begin. Nonetheless, I think about there being no likelihood of reconciliation along with her will weigh on Franks for the remainder of NCIS: Origins Season 1 and possibly even into Season 2. He spent a decade of his life along with her, and she or he helped pull him out of the outlet he’d fallen into post-Vietnam when he was transporting medicine throughout state traces and coping with his personal substance abuse points. You don’t simply recover from shedding somebody like that for good shortly.
There are three episodes left to go in NCIS: Origins’ first season, so hopefully they gained’t shrink back from exploring the aftermath of Mike Franks’ life with Tish Kwa’la being over. Whereas we all know from NCIS how his story will finally finish, I’d nonetheless prefer to see him discover love once more earlier than he retires to Mexico. The man’s been by way of a lot!