NCIS: Origins episode 1 & 2 recap: Gibbs joins the NIS team
NCIS: Origins episodes 1 & 2 aired together on CBS on October 14, 2024. The prequel to the popular American investigative drama series NCIS is narrated and executive-produced by Mark Harmon, who played the lead character in the original show.
NCIS: Origins, the sixth installment within the NCIS media franchise, will explore the origin story of the legendary NCIS Supervisory Special Agent and Special Agent in Charge Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
The show begins with his first day on the job, where he meets his colleagues and his boss Mike Franks. His first case as a NIS special agent involves the twisted murder of a woman named Melanie, who was found burnt in her house. As the story progresses, the case gets more complicated as the involvement of a sniper in the killings is revealed.
Leroy Jethro Gibbs is recruited to the NIS
NCIS: Origins is set in 1991 and begins with the newly recruited special agent Gibbs driving to the office. He and the viewers are introduced to his colleagues, his boss Mike Frank and the precinct by special agent Bernard Randolf.
However, the meeting is cut short, as they have to rush to a crime scene where a woman named Melanie is found dead in her house, which has some peculiar artifacts that appear to be some kind of props for satanic rituals. Gibbs meets agent Lala Dominguez at the scene and throws up after looking at the burnt body of the victim.
As the episodes progress, we learn that Gibbs is grieving the murder of his wife and daughter and failed the psych evaluation for recruitment in the NIS. However, he was recruited by Mike Frank despite his poor mental state, which doesn't sit well with Lala, who believes that he could become a hazard during field operations and has been brought in as a potential replacement for her.
Mark Harmon appears as the narrator of NCIS: Origins
Mark Harmon became a household name for his portrayal of the character of Supervisory Special Agent and Special Agent in Charge Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS. He left the show after the 19th season but returned as the narrator and executive producer of NCIS: Origins.
At the end of episode 1, he's seen sitting by a fire with a notebook in his hand, relieving the memories of the initial days of his NICS career. He reveals that this story is centered around Lala Dominguez, and his narration has a dark undertone, suggesting something darker and tragic is going to happen in the series.
NCIS: Origins opening episodes involves a killer sniper
The case gets complicated as Gibbs finds out that Melanie was killed by a sniper, and the burning of the house was just a distraction created by the killer to pivot the investigation into a satanic ritual angle.
Later, as another sniper murder happens on the beach, the killer is sensationalized by the media as the Sandman. However, at the end of episode 2, it's revealed that Melanie was killed by her drug dealer friend, Bugs, who might have also been her boyfriend. He was trained as a sniper in the military and killed Melanie because she didn't want him anymore and wanted to be with someone else.
While the sniper murder was solved, the ending narration by Mark Harmon suggests that the show would involve more twisted and dark cases in the upcoming episodes.
NCIS: Origins episode 3 will be aired on CBS on October 21, 2024.
