Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins Season 2 premiere are ahead!
Over five months ago, NCIS: Origins fans watched Mariel Molino’s Lala Dominguez get caught in a car crash in the final moments of the Season 1 finale. Did she survive or not? That question has finally been answered with the debut of the Origins Season 2 premiere, titled “The Funky Bunch,” on the 2025 TV schedule. While it’s nice to finally have some closure on this storyline, it also raises two important questions for me concerning this show’s main protagonist, Austin Stowell’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
Where Things Stand With Lala
Like the title of this episode indicates, the NCIS: Origins Season 2 premiere was packed with good vibrations, and I don’t just mean Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s hit 1991 song. Lala fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief that she’s still alive. She was out of commission for several months to recover from the car accident, but as Gibbs, Mike Franks and Cliff Wheeler were investigating a new case, she officially returned to duty.
With Lala’s return, as well as Wheeler and Randy convincing Regional Director Ronald Barrett that they should return to their previous positions, the status quo returned to normal by the end of the episode. Well, mostly. Gibbs felt Lala was taking too many risks with this case given her physical condition, and Lala felt that Gibbs was being overprotective and preventing her from properly doing her job.
By the end of the episode, they seemed to have reached an understanding. However, with Gibbs now dating Diane, his future second wife, Lala has moved on from liking him as more than a colleague, telling Mary Jo he’s “too complicated” for her.
Why Didn’t Lala Tell Gibbs About Her Confrontation With Macy?
Way back in the NCIS Season 6 two-parter “Legend,” which served as the backdoor pilot for NCIS: Los Angeles, Leroy Jethro Gibbs learned that Lara Macy had buried the evidence connecting him to Pedro Hernandez’s murder. In the NCIS: Origins Season 1 finale, we learned that it was Lala who convinced Macy to drop her investigation. She was on her way to tell Gibbs about the good news when she was caught in the car crash.
I can understand if Lala is no longer romantically interested in Gibbs, but why is she now keeping the information about Macy to herself? It’ll be nearly two decades until he learns the truth, and I’m wondering why Mariel Molino’s character suddenly feels why it’s not important to explain her role in making sure he wasn’t sent to prison. Or is this going to be another one of this show’s few retconning moments, like Jackson Gibbs’ relationship with Mike Franks? I must know!
How Is NCIS: Origins The Story About Lala?
This is the same question I was asking around this time last year, and it’s back on my mind. It would have been understandable that the older Gibbs wouldn’t like telling the story if she’d died in that car crash, but that didn’t happen. She’s sticking around for the foreseeable future. So what’s going to happen between Gibbs and Lala that makes it so he doesn’t fell comfortable mentioning her to anyone else and writing down his history with her until well after he’s left NCIS?
The wait for these answers continues, though hopefully the chances of Lala Dominguez still being alive in the present day are stronger. New episodes of NCIS: Origins air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, and can be streamed afterwards with a Paramount+ subscription.