SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from Monday’s midseason finale NCIS: Origins on CBS.

EXCLUSIVE: Until this week, fans of the NCIS The franchise was led to believe that it was Mike Franks who had the biggest influence on Gibbs getting a job with the military police. And on the whole it’s still true – only now we know his square-jawed boss doesn’t deserve it all the credit.

Showrunners David J. North and Gina Monreal were fascinated by how “unexpected people come and go in our lives, who are sometimes the most influential,” and decided to create a story in which Gibbs draws inspiration from the most unlikely people – his bad-tempered landlord. Titled “Blue Bayou,” based on Linda Ronstadt’s cover of the 1977 Roy Orbison classic (“I feel so bad that I worry, I’m so lonely all the time“), Gibbs (Austin Stowell) forms a unique connection with Ruth (London Garcia), whom he briefly met in the November 25 episode titled “One Flew Over.”

Not only do the two spend some much-needed time together – he helps her track down some losers who stole her stuff – she also encourages Gibbs not to be “a bit bitchy” when it comes to NIS training consist. “You’re a hell of a big sister,” he tells her after he graduates.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that in NCIS canon we know that Gibbs kills Pedro Hernandez and then suddenly he’s an NIS agent,” North tells Deadline. “Gina and I just talked a lot and realized we would like to see a story with Ruth and Gibbs. We think it’s really a story that suits Gibbs. He met Ruth when he had no one and he couldn’t even tell his own father that he had left the Marines. Ruth was there for him when no one else was. In the end, we learn that Ruth was really the one who made him believe this could be a career for him. She saved him.”

For Garcia, getting the call she was looking for was an unexpected thrill Origins plays after playing such a small role in the November 25 episode. “It was just me, being a bit of a slumlord, showing an apartment. I did the one episode and thought, I just want to make sure they got what they wanted,” said Garcia, whose previous experience includes small roles This is us, American Crime Story, UnprisonedAnd 9-1-1: Lone Star. “When I read the script (for Blue Bayou), I couldn’t believe it. The story is so incredible to me. Every time I read it my face was wet. I cried every time.”

Stowell said some of the episodes – like when Gibbs and Ruth spend quiet time together solving mysteries – are very personal.

“I talked to David and Gina quite a bit about my personal life,” he tells Deadline. “I’m a puzzle person and my father passed away a few years ago, so I’m getting a lot of use out of that in this role. There’s so much of Gibbs that comes from my relationship with my father. And part of what helped me get through that time was puzzles. I was living in LA at the time, in the middle of the coronavirus crisis, and I had a neighbor who noticed what was going on and we went for walks almost every day. So he bought me a puzzle, and then it became kind of a tradition that we would pass puzzles to each other. I really hope he sees this episode.”

“Filming these puzzle scenes was a breeze,” explains Garcia. It was all improv, so they made up different conversations and laughed about them afterwards. However, it was important to convey the meaning behind it to the viewers.

“There is a certain level of comfort when you are with people without talking,” Garcia explains. “There’s so much they could talk about that they don’t want to talk about it. And the fact that neither of them pushes each other is nice in itself.”

Stowell appreciates how the episode “illustrates so much about why Gibbs is the way he is.” His stress upon learning of Ruth’s fatal diagnosis leads him to believe that he has failed the psychological evaluation, which in turn makes him a magnet for bar brawls. Franks (Kyle Schmid) ends up hiring Gibbs for NIS because Ruth belittles him for not believing enough in their mutual friend.

“He was hurt time and time again by those he cared about, first his family. And now this is another huge, let’s call it, thorn in his side that will stay with him forever,” Stowell tells Deadline. “Yes, at some point he will get the job at NIS. Yes, he goes on to have that incredible career that we all know and ends up in Alaska and seems to be happy and at peace there. His relationship with Ruth must be a direct catalyst for that.”

“This is where we meet the real guy,” Stowell continues. “That’s what I enjoyed right from the start, taking on this challenge. I thought it was a unique opportunity to play a character before they become heroes. We find out how he recovered. We learn how he built the foundation of a fortress, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, which stands in the river in Alaska. It’s a real gift for me to explore that as an actor, but it’s also very interesting for the audience to see how this man was created.”