NCIS: Origins plants the franchise in a new era, tracking Leroy Jethro Gibbs at the start of his NIS life as a rookie “probie.” The series widens the frame beyond Mark Harmon’s legacy figure and invests in the people who forged him, especially agent Lala Dominguez and Mike Franks’s unit with Bernard Randolf.
Season two opens by resolving the big finale question around Lala’s fate after the car crash. The premiere, “The Funky Bunch,” sets the season’s stakes and keeps building the origin story of the future MCRT chief while sharpening the messy bonds inside his first work family. The period setting gives the world a lived-in bite, and the show treats the mythology as a playground rather than a museum.
The Anatomy of a Canonical Heartbreak
Lala survives and returns from rehab, and the episode handles that reveal with speed. That early confirmation clears the deck for the true conflict: romantic tension with new complications. During her absence, Gibbs started seeing Diane, a figure viewers know will become his wife.
The move is gutsy. The future sits in plain view, yet the present still stings. Gibbs greets Lala’s return with avoidance, a defensive move to protect himself from another blow. He leans into the safer relationship with Diane, which turns her into an immediate dramatic counterweight.
The hour walks a tightrope and keeps the heat alive. The “will-they/won’t-they” spark feels immediate even with an outcome the audience already understands. The grip of the story comes from the wish that the timeline might bend, if only for them.
Finding the Groove: Morale and Marky Mark
Without Lala, the team sagged. Low morale, low results. Her reentry throws that dependence into sharp relief. Mike Franks carries the most strain, juggling personal threads involving his long-lost brother and Tish while coaxing a room of agents who lost their spark.
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The show restores its familiar rhythm by pairing weight with levity. Bernard Randolf, stuck behind a desk with data entry, turns into the comic engine. His fixation on “Good Vibrations” becomes a metronome for the unit’s timing, a silly earworm that nudges everyone back on beat.
The laughs land, particularly when Franks and Wheeler square off with early-nineties pop references that sail past them. The hour corrects course: Randolf gets back in the field, Wheeler earns a small step forward, and the quartet slides into an easy harmony. The capper seals it. Four agents jammed into a car, singing badly, and somehow sounding like a team again.
The True Monster: Duty and Neglect
“The Funky Bunch” sets up a case that whispers urban legend vibes about human hunting on a remote “Range.” The misdirect hides a sharper truth tied to the show’s core. The Marine died because a superior officer ran a pointless “thumbtack test,” a mix of arrogance and neglect that cost a life over a pair of sneakers. The horror lands inside the chain of command, not in a campfire myth.
That choice matters to this series. It feeds the forge where Gibbs’s code hardens. He takes the failure of duty personally, and the senselessness hits with force. A week’s procedural frame becomes a look at the emotional breaks that will shape a leader. How many more losses like this will it take before Gibbs builds walls high enough to keep the hurt out?
NCIS: Origins is a prequel to the long-running NCIS series, detailing the early career of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. The first season of the show premiered on CBS on October 14, 2024. The show follows a young Gibbs (played by Austin Stowell) as he starts his career as a Probationary Special Agent with the Naval Investigative Service in 1991, under the mentorship of NIS legend Mike Franks. Mark Harmon, who played the character for two decades, returns as the narrator and an executive producer. Viewers can watch the series on the CBS network and stream episodes on Paramount+. Season 2 of the series is scheduled to premiere on October 14, 2025.
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The Review
NCIS: Origins Season 2
The second season premiere smartly moves past simple fan service to establish its own strong dramatic stakes. It excels in creating compelling emotional tension around Gibbs's relationship with Lala, even with the predetermined canonical outcomes. The episode serves as a powerful reset for the team dynamic, quickly finding the necessary blend of humor and procedural seriousness that defined the flagship show's earliest years. By using the week's case to deeply shape Gibbs’s evolving moral code, the series confirms it has important, foundational stories left to tell, securing its place as a compelling entry in the franchise.
PROS
- Successfully manages established franchise canon to create present-day romantic tension.
- The team dynamic and chemistry are fully restored, balancing drama with light comedy.
- Case-of-the-week structure is thematically rich, effectively shaping Gibbs's moral code.
- Strong character focus on Franks, Randolf, and the central Gibbs/Lala relationship.
CONS
- The resolution to the Season 1 cliffhanger (Lala’s fate) was predictable.
- The show faces an ongoing risk of stretching existing timeline continuity.
- The "safer" relationship choice (Diane) inherently feels less compelling than the forbidden one (Lala).
