Mike Franks is fuming.
Sitting in the makeshift video village they’ve constructed in Franks’ bedroom, I can feel the anger and frustration pour out of him. It’s so overwhelming that the actor who portrays Franks on NCIS: Origins, Kyle Schmid, keeps blanking on his lines as he gets caught up in the intensity.
The crew assures me this is extremely unusual, a sign of how dire things are for Franks and his team — Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Austin Stowell), Cecilia “Lala” Dominguez (Mariel Molino), and Bernard “Randy” Randolf (Caleb Foote).
The cast behind the NCIS prequel are in the final days of their first season, and the pressure is on as the specter of Pedro Hernandez (George Paez) rears its head once again. “Pedro and Gibbs are synonymous with one another,” explains co-creator David J. North. “There’s so much that we, as big NCIS fans, have understood what happened, but there’s also so much that has been unanswered.”
Longtime NCIS viewers know that Gibbs is responsible for the death of cartel leader Pedro Hernandez as retribution for the murder of his wife and daughter — a plot point that audiences saw play out for this younger version of Gibbs in the Origins mid-season finale.
And it’s something that Gibbs feels no remorse over. “It’s a righteous killing in his mind,” says Stowell. “We’ve already seen him try to commit suicide once, so if he really wasn’t okay with it, I don’t know if he would be around.”
But the season finale might find Gibbs having misgivings of a different kind, thanks to another familiar face from the NCIS family — agent Lara Macy (Claire Berger), currently still a lowly MP trying to make a name for herself. “We’ve seen the older version of this character in the mothership,” says co-creator Gina Lucita Monreal. “And on the spinoff of NCIS: Los Angeles. We’re so excited to see this younger version of her and to play her against these characters that we’ve come to know.”
“But she really does come in like a tornado,” continues Monreal. “And it affects not only Gibbs, but the entire team.”
Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart…
That brings us back to Franks’ fury, the response of a cornered animal. After a few well-deployed “f—-s”, Schmid, still speaking in his character’s Southern drawl, takes a quick break. Then, he’s back, standing more confidently in Franks’ signature boots, ready to ask the hard questions.
Because Macy is Lala’s friend, Franks has to entertain the possibility that Lala is Macy’s source. “That is the hardest pill to swallow when you are desperately looking for answers that are trying to point you in a different direction than the person that is directly across the table from you,” says Schmid. “The difficulty that Mike faces in this episode is not wanting to believe or consider for a second that Lala might have something to do with this.”
Whether he wants to believe it or not, he can’t discount the possibility, a fact that hits Lala where it hurts. “Time and time again, we see Lala go to the ends of the earth to support Franks, Gibbs, and her team,” says Molino. “I’ve shown Franks my loyalty. So when he questions that, it just breaks my heart because not only would I not do that to him, I wouldn’t do it to Gibbs, I wouldn’t do it to my team. It’s a reminder to her that no matter how loyal you are, no matter how hardworking you are, there is still this line that is because she’s not one of the boys.”
“She’s going to realize she doesn’t have to be one of the boys,” Molino adds. “And that’s actually what makes her a lot more interesting.”
The sound of silence
What makes all of this more complicated is the fact that both Franks and Lala know that Gibbs murdered Hernandez and have kept his secret for months, making them potential accessories. Franks, after all, gave Gibbs the Hernandez file, allowing Gibbs to track the kingpin down and exact justice for his late wife and daughter.
Before starting his day of filming, Schmid pops by after hair and make-up to chat about the finale. We’re comfy on a cozy couch next to a prop arcade game in the NIS bullpen, but the atmosphere is anything but relaxing, as he buzzes with the reality of these potential ramifications. “The repercussions [for Franks and Gibbs] are very similar,” reflects Schmid. “Mike would be going to jail for decades. In watching a young man slowly destroy his life, Mike consciously decided to give Gibbs the file. He is a willing participant in this.”
It is 100 percent against the law,” the actor continues. “But justice wasn’t being served, and Mike felt that the only way to pull Gibbs back from the abyss was to give him the tools to close that door in whatever way that Gibbs was going to choose to do it.”
Lala faces a similar conundrum, perhaps to a slightly lighter degree. But her situation is also complicated by her feelings for Gibbs. “It’s a fine line of being mad at Gibbs, but also wanting to protect him so much,” Molino teases. “She’s really struggling with her heart and mind and figuring out what to do.”
Gibbs, however, will, as always, remain fixated on how he can prevent any collateral damage from touching those around him. “It’s a murder and Gibbs could be brought to trial for that,” muses Stowell, taking Schmid’s spot on the timeworn plaid couch. “He’s okay with that. What he’s not okay with is others going down because of it. He will not allow those he cares most about to be punished because of his actions”
“He’ll do anything to protect those he loves,” Stowell continues. “And Lara Macy is a threat to that. So, what would Gibbs do to a threat?”
I am a rock, I am an island
Stowell presents an ominous question. One that carries more weight with the context of the previous episode, in which Gibbs discovered that his VA support group leader was Sandman, a deadly sniper the team has been hunting since the pilot.
“It brings Gibbs into a questioning state of mind,” says Monreal. “Because he’s had a breakthrough within this therapy group, and now that’s completely turned on its head. In the finale, we’re going to find him trying to go back to his roots and how he deals with these darker questions that are surrounding him.”
Stowell is also returning to his roots on set on this particular day. On screen, Stowell is with Gibbs’ dad, once again dissecting Leroy’s need to move on. But behind the scenes, Stowell’s mom, visiting from the East Coast, has joined me and the series’ technical advisor in the video village.
She’s regaling me with stories of a young Stowell and his athletic prowess, which dominated his life until a high school injury sidelined him and pointed him toward acting. It’s a bit meta, getting the star of Origins’ own origin story straight from the source. A fact that clearly tickles Stowell when he comes back to visit in between takes, letting his mom know that he’ll be shooting too late tonight to join her for dinner.
It’s a reminder that Gibbs, like Stowell, has a warmth and capacity for love and humor buried somewhere under all that grief. But then that flash of a different shade of humanity is gone and, as is always the case with Gibbs, it’s back to business, as Stowell returns to the live set of Daley’s Tavern, the show’s local watering hole for NIS staffers (and other navy personnel). Business that is quickly interrupted by Lala, who has come to warn him about Macy’s intentions.
Molino is harried and out of breath every time she enters for a new take, impatiently breaking through a crowd of background actors in fatigues who are picking a bar fight. The tension between Lala and Gibbs teeters on a knife’s edge, emphasizing how much Macy’s presence also turns a spotlight on the will they-won’t they energy that’s bristled between Gibbs and Lala from the moment they first locked eyes over a charred black corpse.
She once was a true love of mine
“This entire season,” teases North, “we’ve seen this connection that these two people have had at the most inopportune moments of their lives. We really see that all come to a head in the season finale.”
That’s right, Libbs (whatever, we’re coining the shipper name, live with it), your moment has come — Lala and Gibbs will have to reckon with their feelings.
“She sees someone who is a little bit dead inside because of losing his family,” Molino says of her initial care for Gibbs. “She loves him, and she almost wants to bring him back to life. She knows that there’s a glimmer of life in there and that he’s worthy of love and a life. She’s trying everything she can to save him, and yet, he is willing to sacrifice himself.”
That sounds foreboding, particularly because this entire season has come with a Lala-sized elephant in the room. Through every bit of romantic tension between this pair, a fact remains — Cecilia Dominguez is not a character who is ever once mentioned in the original NCIS.
That erasure is all the more bittersweet as we sit in Lala’s apartment set, discussing the character’s future. The space is littered with touches of the character’s private life, pictures of her and her sisters dotting the refrigerator and bookshelves. What appears to be a hand-knit blanket is folded over the back of the couch, and a fake plant is illuminated by twinkling lights in the fireplace.
All of this proclaims a person’s existence — the things that matter to them, the touches that telegraph what they hold dear. And yet, Gibbs will someday bury all of it deeper than even the death of his wife and child. Why?
“I’m concerned about Lala’s wellbeing,” admits Molino. “I don’t know how this ends without it being tragic in some way. But I do find it interesting that Gibbs can never mention me in the future. To me, that is a sign of profound pain or regret and an immense love.”
Will the finale bring any answers in that regard? Molino pauses, taking in the simple but comforting room full of Lala’s things. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to Lala,” she says. “But I can say that she is willing to go as far as she can to save Gibbs. It is not a good place [where she ends the season]; it is unsettling and terrifying.”
