Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “Bugs” are forward!
NCIS: Origins’ two-part sequence premiere, “Enter Sandman,” noticed contemporary NIS recruit Leroy Jethro Gibbs working along with his new teammates to apprehend a sniper often called Sandman. The case appeared prefer it was open and shut as soon as Jameson “Bugs” Boyd was captured and he confessed to killing his girlfriend Melanie, her lover Dustin Cruz, and two others. However then alongside got here Origins Season 1’s midseason finale, the place shredded items of paper confirmed that Bugs had “labored carefully with a second sniper,” in addition to how there’d been a “catastrophic mishandling” of an Operation Sunset.
This storyline was lastly revisited in “Bugs,” the Origins episode that simply completed airing on the 2025 TV schedule. We acquired some main bombshells concerning the Sandman killer, and I now discover the Season 1 villain to be much more scary. And simply to be clear, I’m not speaking about Mr. Boyd.
How Bugs Got here Again Into The Image On NCIS: Origins
Bugs was among the many individuals who Vera Strickland had been interviewing for her psych profile program, however as a result of funding washed up, she was by no means in a position to get him to completely divulge heart’s contents to her. She lastly appeared to catch a break when she acquired a name from Bugs weeks after she’d final seen him, asking her to return in. Vera was accepted to return and see Bugs on the jail, however when she arrived together with her recording gear, he immediately not needed to talk together with her.
Upon additional investigation, Vera and the opposite fundamental NCIS: Origins characters realized that somebody had known as Bugs up on the jail after he talked to Vera. This mysterious particular person who referred to Bugs as “household” (no, it’s not Bugs’ cousin Hershel) saved issues cryptic throughout his transient cellphone name with Bugs, however it was sufficient to spook the latter and name off his dialog with Vera. So how did this particular person know that Vera and Bugs have been going to talk? It seems three listening units had been planted within the NIS Camp Pendleton workplace.
Mike Franks initially suspected that former NIS agent Roger Murphy was accountable, however he claimed he didn’t know something concerning the units when Franks and Gibbs spoke to him in jail. Then Vera revisited Bugs, and after she shut off her digital camera, that’s when the sniper revealed the reality concerning the occasions of “Enter Sandman” got here to gentle. Nicely, most of it anyway.
What Actually Occurred In ‘Enter Sandman’ And Extra
Let’s get the massive reveal out of the way in which first: Bugs didn’t kill Melanie. It was the aforementioned second sniper who did this when Melanie realized that Bugs was concerned within the mysterious Operation Sunset, and that Dustin Cruz, whom she was not truly sleeping with, was being focused. Earlier than she was killed although, she tipped off Cruz, although that didn’t do him any good since he was sniped quickly after by Bugs. The second sniper additionally instructed Bugs to burn Melanie’s home right down to destroy any lingering proof.
So why did Bugs take the autumn for Melanie’s homicide? All he informed Vera was “to guard the mission,” and that he would inform her the second sniper’s title as soon as stated mission was over. Solely, that’s not going to occur. You see, this episode additionally noticed Gibbs and Franks wanting into the theft of Navy reservist Wyatt Morton’s pockets from his home. Morton was determined to get the pockets again as a result of it had the one image he had of his father within the uniform he wore in World Battle II.
The second sniper stole Morton’s pockets, as he wanted the entry card for the water provide facility the place he labored. That facility was roughly half a mile from the jail the place Bugs was being held, so upon getting in a chief place, the sniper shot his former companion within the head whereas he was out within the yard. Yeah, this man doesn’t fiddle, so the Origins staff will must be on their guard once they cross paths with him.
So the place does that depart us forward of “Darlin’, Do not Chorus” airing subsequent Monday at 10 pm ET on CBS? The second sniper is on the unfastened and he’s decided to complete a mission that’s related to Operation Sunset. Oh, and both he one way or the other planted these listening units on the Camp Pendleton workplace or he had one other companion do it, which means this might have been a three-person conspiracy. I sit up for seeing subsequent week how this storyline wraps up… except it finally ends up stretching into the officially-greenlit NCIS: Origins Season 2.