Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “Blue Bayou” are forward!
NCIS: Origins has solely been airing on the 2024 TV schedule for 2 months, and it’s already reached the tip of an period. The present’s latest episode, “Blue Bayou”, confirmed the occasions that led to Leroy Jethro Gibbs becoming a member of NIS. In different phrases, the time interval in Gibbs’ life from when he realized his spouse and daughter had been murdered to the place we met him at first of Origins’ two-part premiere is now coated.
Whereas the story of how Gibbs went from a grieving man with no course in his life to a Navy cop was definitely attention-grabbing to look at unfold, it was the ending tease of a brand new villain coming to Season 1, in addition to the place issues left off with Gibbs and Lala Dominguez’s difficult relationship, that I discovered particularly compelling. So naturally I needed to ask Origins co-showrunner David J. North about this stuff once I had the chance to interview him, however earlier than we get into his solutions, let’s recap what occurred in “Blue Bayou”.
What Occurred In The Newest NCIS: Origins
Most of “Blue Bayou” was set a couple of months earlier than the principle occasions of NCIS: Origins, with Gibbs interested by these recollections as he was on the final shift and after getting an upsetting cellphone name. After Gibbs killed Pedro Hernandez, the person who murdered Shannon, Kelly and the agent assigned to guard them (which was initially purported to be Randy’s job), he left the Marine Corps and flipped out in his house. This caught the eye of his constructing supervisor Ruth, who promptly kicked him out when she noticed the harm he brought about.
Nonetheless, after later seeing Gibbs in his truck mattress because the rain was pouring down with nowhere to go, she let him return to the house. Noticing he had a pleasant, flat desk, she began bringing jigsaw puzzles to his place to unravel, and Gibbs helped her out with them. Though Ruth was initially distant in the direction of her tenant, they ultimately turned pals, to the purpose that Gibbs informed her that he killed Pedro Hernandez. It was one thing he’d been attempting to inform Mike Franks, even attempting to broach the topic with him on the grocery retailer the place Gibbs briefly labored, however Franks didn’t wish to hear about it.
At Ruth’s urging, Gibbs enrolled at FLETC in Georgia and skilled there for 2 months to develop into an NIS agent. However upon returning house, Ruth knowledgeable Gibbs she was dying of blood most cancers, one thing she knew about even earlier than he left. Upset by the information, Gibbs failed his psych eval and obtained right into a bar battle that obtained him thrown in a jail cell. Ruth confirmed as much as bail him out, however Mike Franks was additionally there, so she gave him a chunk of her thoughts. She berated Franks for abandoning Gibbs when he wanted him and knowledgeable the mustachioed agent that the one purpose Gibbs failed the psych eval was as a result of he was interested by her terminal situation.
So deciding to chop Gibbs a break, Mike Franks scrapped the NIS job supply Gibbs initially had lined up and recruited him onto his crew. From there, Gibbs was capable of find Ruth’s estranged son in New Orleans, and he or she traveled to New Orleans to spend her final days with him. The cellphone name was Gibbs studying that she died.
What These Shredded Paper Teases Set Up
Whereas this was an incredible story to make clear the previous, it was the ultimate moments of “Blue Bayou” that set the stage for NCIS: Origins’ future. You’ll recall that Jamison “Bugs” Boyd was the sniper whom the crew caught in “Enter Sandman” and whom Vera Strickland has been interviewing for her psych profile program. Properly, as the brand new episode was ending, some shredded paper from the NIS basement was proven with two incomplete sentences: “They labeled Operation Sunset ‘a catastrophic mishandling of…’” and “That Boyd, a.okay.a. Bugs, had labored intently with a second sniper.” After I requested David J. North to elaborate on that tease, he informed me:
Properly, keep tuned with Operation Sunset. I do not wish to give an excessive amount of away there. However on the finish of our two-part pilot, ‘Enter Sandman’, older Gibbs’ voiceover tells us that the worst monsters lie and wait and are available again. Gibbs’ intestine was telling him there was extra to this story, and now the viewers is aware of that Bugs was working with a accomplice and there may be somebody nonetheless on the market, somebody that needs to be reckoned with within the again half of the season.
The phrase “intently” notably caught my eye, because it led me to surprise if this second sniper helped Bugs out with killing the 4 folks he did in “Enter Sandman”. Whereas North wouldn’t make clear with me if that was the case or not, he did make it fairly clear that this thriller baddie could have a extra outstanding function within the coming Origins episodes. In his phrases:
The second sniper, I’ll let you know, is the larger unhealthy. That is the somebody that needs to be discovered rapidly.
It stays to be seen if Bugs will by some means escape from custody afterward in NCIS: Origins, nevertheless it may be a moot level now. It feels like his foremost objective was to arrange the second sniper, and this different baddie will trigger far more mayhem than his accomplice did judging by the best way older Gibbs was speaking as “Enter Sandman” was concluding.
What’s Subsequent For Gibbs and Lala’s Difficult Relationship
Lala Dominguez was initially upset with Leroy Jethro Gibbs not as a result of he killed Pedro Hernandez, however as a result of he and Mike Franks had stored it secret from her. It was so unhealthy that Lala was initially to ask Cliff Wheeler that she be taken off the crew. Nonetheless, when Lala met again up with Gibbs on the NIS workplace later and he or she heard him inform the story about Ruth, she modified her thoughts. So these characters appear to be on a lot better standing with one another by the tip of “Blue Bayou”, and right here’s what David J. North informed me once I requested whether or not Pedro Hernandez’s homicide would nonetheless issue into their dynamic or if the present was transferring on to different issues:
Properly, each. We’re transferring on to different issues, however the truth is, it’s like older Gibbs/Mark’s voiceover says on the finish, that she informed him that she needed to work on trusting him once more. So it may be a course of, however I feel like Lala says to Gibbs within the opening scene in that darkish room: if somebody killed her household, she does not know what she would’ve carried out, possibly the very same factor he did. She does not know. So she understands why he did it, she simply has to return to phrases with the truth that he did not inform her even when she poured her coronary heart out to him. They will proceed to be a sophisticated relationship, a piece in progress.
Lala goes to develop into somebody vital in Gibbs’ life, as evidenced by him saying within the collection premiere that the story he’s telling is about “her.” Issues aren’t as unhealthy between them now in comparison with the tip of “Vivo o Muerto”, however as North laid out, their relationship will proceed being difficult going ahead. The silver lining is that the reality about Pedro Hernandez received’t be as contentious a subject between them anymore.
NCIS: Origins will return with new episodes Monday, January 27 on the 2025 TV schedule. Use your Paramount+ subscription to revisit what’s aired in Season 1 up to now.