NCIS: Origins Season 2’s Lala Spoiler Ruins Gibbs’ Entire Character Arc

Despite her harrowing cliffhanger ending in season 1, NCIS: Origins may have spoiled a fate for Lala that threatens to severely damage Gibbs’ entire storyline. Leroy’s relationship with Lala has been one of the most compelling throughlines of the series. But despite the lack of true confirmation in the NCIS: Origins season 1 finale, most fans reasonably assume she’s deceased.

There are naturally conflicting opinions about this, with many fans unwilling to see a likable member of the NCIS: Origins cast mulched into worm food by a little girl and a parked car. But the spinoff’s very first episode strongly implied a future tragedy involving Lala, and that tragedy’s outcome may have been spoiled ahead of NCIS: Origins season 2.

NCIS: Origins Season 2 Has Already Revealed Lala’s Fate After The Season 1 Finale

©CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection

Fans were largely content to speculate about Lala’s fate until the spinoff returned in the fall, but Mariel Molino’s NCIS: Origins backlot photo spoiled that Molino has been called to set and will reprise her role as Lala in NCIS: Origins season 2. Naturally, the gut reaction of many was to take it as implying that Lala survives the crash.

There are multiple problems with this, not the least of which is that revealing Lala’s fate so soon spoils NCIS: Origins’ season 1 cliffhanger. Knowing that Lala survives would cheapen the effect of her crash and call all future cliffhangers into question, setting up the audience to assume any apparent tragedies were merely marketing gimmicks that could easily be undone.

Fortunately, things aren’t so cut and dry. In a recent interview, NCIS: Origins co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal points out that Molino’s appearance on set doesn’t necessarily mean that her character is alive. She could just as easily portray Dominguez lying in a hospital bed, slumbering in a coffin, or haunting Gibbs through a vision, dream, flashback, etc. Monreal simply states:

“I can confirm that Mariel has been on set with us. I think it’s fair to say you will see her in the show, but how you will see her remains a mystery. And what her fate actually is remains a mystery.”

Spoiling Molino’s presence on set still takes some of the wind out of her potential appearance in a dream or flashback as well, but the bigger problem is that Gibbs’ narration leaves little room for interpretations other than that she’s dead. And, even if there’s room for doubt, suggesting otherwise raises legitimate concerns about how her survival would affect Gibbs.

Lala’s Survival Robs Gibbs’ NCIS: Origins Season 1 Storyline Of All Meaning

©CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection

In the same interview quoted above, Monreal mentions that a primary challenge of writing the prequel series is that NCIS’ canon isn’t always entirely consistent. But Gibbs’ narration in NCIS: Origins needs to at least remain consistent with the story he’s narrating, and that’s no longer the case if Lala survives after Gibbs’ final lines in the season 1 finale.

Gibbs choosing never to tell Lala’s story implies that he feels a sense of guilt over his indirect role in the car crash. Following the conclusion of Lara Macy’s NCIS: Origins storyline, Lala crashes on her way to inform Leroy that he’s no longer the target of Lara’s murder investigation. His guilt only makes sense if he actually knows that.

The problem is that the flagship series, or the “mothership” as the cast and crew prefer to call it, establishes that it takes another 18 years for Gibbs to even learn that Macy dropped the investigation voluntarily. And, since Lara Macy’s NCIS introduction was written years before the prequel, Lala’s name naturally never comes up at all in that conversation.

This creates a twofold problem. First, Gibbs learning the truth now creates a plot hole for the mothership. Second, and more importantly for those who can otherwise overlook such plot inconsistencies, maintaining the franchise’s canon prevents Gibbs from dealing with his role in the crash in NCIS: Origins season 2, depriving the series of its potentially most engaging emotional conflict.

From the beginning, it’s appeared that Gibbs’ protectiveness over Lala stems from having lost his family. In the Ruth storyline as well, Gibbs exhibits a tendency to shoulder the burden of protecting everyone he loves from meeting the same fates as his wife and daughter. Lala surviving without Gibbs learning why she crashed cuts that throughline off at the knees.

NCIS: Origins Season 2 Can Still Justify Not Killing Lala By Introducing One Conflict

©CBS / Courtesy Everett Collection

Even supposing NCIS: Origins season 2 began with her popping out of the car and brushing her shoulders off like nothing happened, Lala’s survival could still lead to new conflicts that the flagship series and prequel narration haven’t yet established. In fact, Gibbs taking so long to learn the truth about Macy’s investigation implies a potential conflict of its own.This detail raises the question of why Lala would go 18 years without giving Leroy the very news she nearly died trying to deliver. And the most obvious answer would be that somebody who recognizes Gibbs’ tendency to internalize guilt in the wake of tragedy convinced her to keep it secret. The person most fitting that description is Mike Franks.

Franks outshines Gibbs in NCIS: Origins frequently, in part because he walks arguably the most intriguingly complex moral line of the cast. Given the close-knit (if often combative) nature of their relationship, Franks advising Lala to reluctantly keep secrets from Gibbs would hardly break character. And Franks understands Lala well enough to know that the truth would hurt her, too.

Now that Gibbs and Lala’s NCIS: Origins romance has become transparent enough that everyone can see it brewing, Franks would predict that giving Leroy another reason to torture himself would cause anguish for Dominguez. Yet sensing that Lala of all people is hiding something would still create emotional conflict for Gibbs, allowing the crash to impact his character arc nonetheless.

This wouldn’t resolve every narrative inconsistency created by Lala’s survival, but it’s a way to spin the story so that some degree of Gibbs’ foreshadowed emotional fallout still arises from the crash. NCIS: Origins will likely have to deal with potential canon issues like this again, so they can’t be faulted if they sometimes have to get creative with solutions.

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