Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “Sick as Our Secrets and techniques” are forward!
Presently 4 people comprise the primary staff on NCIS: Origins: Austin Stowell’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Kyle Schmid’s Mike Franks, Mariel Molino’s Lala Dominguez and Caleb Martin Foote’s Bernard “Randy” Randolph. Thus far throughout Origins’ run on the 2024 TV schedule, we haven’t actually gotten to know Randy that effectively apart from studying he has a spouse and toddler son, and he’s been attempting to stop smoking.
Nevertheless, the latest episode revealed that Foote’s character has an sudden connection to Stowell’s main protagonist that’s heartbreaking and I think about will certainly fe adopted up on later in Season 1. Moreover, “Sick as Our Secrets and techniques” delivered an ominous callback to Origins’ debut episodes involving Diany Rodriguez’s Vera Strickland that appears to be setting the stage for one thing larger.
Randy Was Supposed To Shield Gibbs’ Spouse And Daughter
Whether or not you adopted together with Mark Harmon’s Gibbs for years on NCIS or have solely gotten to know the character by way of NCIS: Origins, you already know concerning the tragedy that modified the course of his life. Whereas Gibbs was serving in Operation Desert Storm, his first spouse, Shannon, witnessed a drug supplier named Pedro Hernandez kill a Marine outdoors of a gasoline station. She and Kelly, the couple’s daughter, have been put into protecting custody by NIS, however on the best way to the secure home, Hernandez shot the agent driving them, and Shannon and Kelly died within the crash.
Because it seems, Mitchell, the deceased agent, wasn’t initially assigned to this protecting element; it was Randy. This week’s NCIS: Origins episode adopted the staff investigating the homicide of Father John Larkin, a Navy reserve chaplain who was mistakenly killed as a result of he was substituting throughout confession for the true goal, Father Bobby. Whereas Randy was maintaining a tally of Bobby on the lodge the place they have been laying low, he confessed that he had been tapped to guard Shannon and Kelly, however he requested to be taken off the project as a result of his new child son had colic. As a result of he was so exhausted from the sleepless nights, he was apprehensive he would make a mistake on the element and didn’t need to danger it.
So had issues gone based on the unique plan, Pedro Hernandez would have killed Randy as an alternative of Mitchell, and that’s been haunting Randy for months. That’s why he’d been volunteering for thus many protecting particulars these days, as a method of atoning for lacking the one which price a fellow agent’s life. It’s additionally performed into why he’s secretly nonetheless been smoking, as he’d advised his spouse he stopped a month in the past.
Father Bobby tried to alleviate the guilt Randy was feeling, reminding him that not solely have been the deaths of Mitchell, Shannon and Kelly not his fault, but when he had carried out the element, then it could be his son rising up and not using a father somewhat than Mitchell’s. Randy gave the impression to be in a greater psychological headspace by the point “Sick as Our Secrets and techniques” was over, however I discover it arduous to imagine this gained’t be revisited afterward in NCIS: Origins Season 1. That’s as a result of he nonetheless hasn’t advised Leroy Jethro Gibbs this secret.
Except for lastly dropping off the letter to Mitchell’s household that he’d written months earlier to precise his condolences, Gibbs didn’t have a private arc this week, which is ok. I perceive why Randy sharing his sudden connection to his teammate wasn’t squeezed into the episode given all the pieces else that was occurring. Nonetheless, to channel Gibbs, I’ve a intestine feeling that this can come to gentle for him earlier than the expanded Season 1 is over, and whereas I don’t suppose Gibbs will in the end maintain a grudge towards Randy, it’s straightforward to ascertain him being upset at first.
Vera’s Interviewing The Villain From the NCIS: Origins Premiere
NCIS: Origins takes place in 1991, six years after Vera Strickland severed her partnership her partnership with Mike Franks. As such, though she’s one of many present’s major characters, she’s largely been doing her personal factor this season, solely often serving to out the primary staff with circumstances. As a substitute, she’s been specializing in getting her psych profiling program off the bottom, one thing that wasn’t going to occur till Franks spoke with Cliff Wheeler, the top of NIS’ Pendleton workplace.
As defined in “Final Rites”, Vera’s program entails NIS taking knowledge on legal offenses and utilizing that data to pinpoint doubtless suspects. It requires her to interview incarcerated offenders, and the primary individual on her checklist was Jamison “Bugs” Boyd. When you’d simply tuned into Origins for the primary time on missed the two-part premiere (which you’ll stream with a Paramount+ subscription), then this was just a few random legal in entrance of her digital camera, however those that’ve been watching Origins because the starting will acknowledge him as the person behind the killings in “Enter Sandman”, which was Gibbs’ first NIS case.
Now it’s attainable that this was simply alleged to be a delicate nod to “Enter Sandman”, which “Sick as Our Secrets and techniques” additionally did by having the staff discover the person who killed Father John Larkin within the tunnels the place they’d beforehand discovered Bugs. However to as soon as once more channel Gibbs, bear in mind Rule 39: there’s no such factor as a coincidence. Okay, so I don’t actually imagine that is as a blanket assertion on life, however I do suppose the Origins writers selected Bugs for a deeper purpose.
What is that this purpose? I do not know. Possibly Bugs in some way breaks free or perhaps he’s related to a different crime the staff will examine. However take him being Vera’s first psych profile and mix it with the older Gibbs’ ominous phrases from the tip of “Enter Sandman” that seemingly teased that this story may very well be revisited, and I’m considering that the conclusion of “Sick as Our Secrets and techniques” planted the narrative seed for one thing that may bloom later this season.
If that finally ends up occurring, rely on CinemaBlend to recap what goes down. Till then, proceed catching watching NCIS: Origins Mondays at 10 pm ET on CBS, following proper after new episodes of NCIS Season 22.