(Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 10 “Blue Bayou.”)

Now we know what led to Gibbs (Austin Stowell) joining NCIS after killing the man who murdered his family, Pedro Hernandez. And he has so much to thank his landlady Ruth (London Garcia).

As flashbacks reveal NCIS: OriginsGibbs and Ruth grew closer – to the point that she was his call when he was picked up for a bar fight. And when Franks (Kyle Schmid) shows up after hearing what happened, Ruth is the one who explains to him that Gibbs failed his psychological evaluation because she previously told him she was dying (cancer). , and got through to him so that he could take him into his team. In Gibbs’ presence, he learns that Ruth has died – and after telling Lala (Mariel Molino) about her, the other agent decides not to apply for a transfer from the team, as she had planned to do after they found out that he had killed Pedro. But before the episode ends, the camera zooms in on two scraps of paper: “They called Operation Sundown a ‘catastrophic mistreatment of,'” and “That Boyd, aka Bugs, had worked closely with a second sniper.”

Below, co-showrunner David J. North breaks down the fall finale and gives a taste of what to expect when the show returns in January.

The question arises as to how many more people Gibbs can lose at this point. They show how his and Ruth’s friendship developed, then she dies. This happened when Lala was planning to leave the team. Why did you want to deal with this new tragedy for Gibbs at this time?

David J. North: As someone who loves NCIS So much, and it’s been such a big part of my life, that I always thought that a huge part of what we know about Gibbs was missing, a huge, important part that really happened after he killed Pedro Hernandez. In NCIS Kanon, Franks shows him this folder, this file, he killed Pedro and suddenly he’s an agent. There’s a little more to it, but it’s just dancing around. Gina (Lucita Monreal) and I really wanted to go into depth about what happened in the months after he killed Pedro, and for us that’s something you don’t just come back from. So he came back and he felt terrible and left the Marines. He couldn’t even face his father (Robert Taylor) to tell him that. People come into our lives at different times and sometimes it is some of the people we least expect who become the most notable and influential to us.

And Ruth, played by the wonderful London Garcia, was just a small character we saw in Episode 7, which showed Gibbs’ apartment. Gina and I were talking and thinking how wonderful it is that a character like this had such an impact on Gibbs, and we’re really proud of this episode. Austin’s performance is fantastic. The first NCIS I guess in 1000 and some episodes where there was never a case, no crime was committed in the episode, but in an origin story, it was fascinating for us to really explore why Gibbs became an agent and we’re really proud of that.

Lala decides to stay. Why does she think she can get to a point where she can trust Gibbs?

I think at the end of the day it’s complicated. As Lala says in the darkroom at the beginning of this episode: If someone killed my family, I don’t know what I would do. Maybe the same as you, Gibbs. It was really because he didn’t tell her. But I think deep down she understands what a difficult position he was in, and we’ll leave it right where we do at the end of the episode, which is that she wants to try to trust him again. But I think they’re definitely on thin ice with their relationship, their feelings and all that.

You end up focusing on two shredded pieces of paper. First of all, what can you say about Operation Sundown, which is described as a catastrophic mistreatment of something?

I don’t want to say much about it without giving too much away, but we’ll find out exactly what Operation Sundown was in the coming episodes.

Then there’s the matter of Boyd working with a second sniper. Did you know at the beginning of the season that you would use him in the same way for Vera’s (Diany Rodriguez) program?

Yes, we knew we would use him for Vera’s program. At the end of “Sandman Part 2”, the second part of our pilot, the voiceover from Mark (Harmon) and the voiceover from the older Gibbs tell us that Gibbs felt there could have been more to this story, and now we learn that it exists.

What can you say about this second sniper?

I can say that bugs were certainly a part of it, but that there is a greater evil out there to be reckoned with.

Does this lead to Vera working more with the team?

Absolutely. Vera will be an integral part of this and getting into the mind of Bugs and finding out what motivated him will be crucial to us finding out who else was involved.

With Vera set to continue working with the team thanks to Boyd, what will we see between her and Franks given their history? I liked what we got in Episode 5.

As with Episode 5, we’ll see more of Vera’s passion project, namely her profiling pilot program. Bugs Boyd is one of the criminals she profiles, and as secrets come to light, Franks is drawn back into a case he wishes had remained closed forever.

Besides Boyd and I taking over Operation Sundown, are there any other multi-episode cases coming up?

As always, our characters’ personal stories will be told throughout, but we will be telling closed-ended murder mysteries… with a few very memorable exceptions.

You’ve gradually introduced aspects of the Gibbs that we know from the series: stopping the elevator, teasing the rules, woodworking, fishing, etc. What other things can you tease that we’ll see the origins of?

Oh, I guess we’ll just have to keep at it. There will be a lot. I think we certainly laid the groundwork with Gibbs building the birdhouse, but we still haven’t figured out exactly where boat building and stuff like that came from.

What else can you announce when the series returns?

When we come back from our break it will be a wild ride until the end. Obviously we came away with a big cliffhanger and revealed that Bugs wasn’t working alone. There is still a lot to do for Gibbs and Lala, and in the coming episodes you will see that Frank and his personal life will change a lot.

Will we see Mark Harmon back on screen in Season 1?

For now we continue to focus on 1991, but you never know, anything is possible.

Given what we’re seeing from Gibbs as he begins his recovery, what can you say about what we’ll see in the future when it comes to the relationship between Gibbs and his father?

Gibbs has a complicated relationship with Jackson. And things got even more complicated after Shannon and Kelly were killed. Jackson (went) home to Stillwater, Pennsylvania, but the two briefly reunited in our winter finale, “Blue Bayou.” And Jackson is a looming presence in his son’s life, so we haven’t seen the last of him yet.

NCIS: OriginsReturns, Monday, January 27, 2025, 10/9c, CBS