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The NCIS franchise added a wild new piece of lore to Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ expansive story, making a profound and needed alteration to Mark Harmon’s character. Harmon played Special Agent-in-Charge Gibbs on the original NCIS series for nearly two decades, until Season 19, when Harmon exited, with Gibbs settling and retiring in Naktok Bay, Alaska.

However, Harmon has passed the torch to Austin Stowell, who plays a younger version of his character in the 1990s NCIS prequel, NCIS: Origins. While touching on Gibbs’ most formative stories in the spinoff, NCIS: Origins has rewritten or reworked vital elements of the SAC’s story, but nothing tops the twist in “End of the Road.”

Gibbs Marries Diane In NCIS: Origins Season 2, Episode 8, “End Of The Road”

In Episode 8, NCIS: Origins Season 2 reveals a wild new element of lore about Leroy Jethro Gibbs, revealing that he and Diane Sterling got married in Las Vegas. When Kathleen Kenny first appeared as Diane in the season finale of NCIS: Origins Season 1, franchise aficionados knew that she would eventually marry Gibbs, becoming his second wife.

However, nothing could have prepared NCIS audiences for the revelation that Gibbs and Diane actually got married in Vegas, as revealed in “End of the Road.” Gibbs is acting on Lala Dominguez’s (Mariel Molino) advice to stop pushing people away. Still, as Harmon notes in his narration as an older Gibbs, he takes the advice to extremes.

What happened with Gibbs and Diane was the opposite of what audiences expected, especially after the couple broke up at the beginning of the episode, when Diane revealed she had landed a reputable new position, but it was in Los Angeles. Gibbs and his girlfriend decided to part ways, not initially wanting to navigate a long-distance relationship.

After Lala confronts Gibbs during their stakeout at Twitchy Tony’s (Travis Hammer) warehouse, telling him he’s ruining another good thing, Leroy reconciles with Diane, and they fly to Vegas to get hitched. The development adds an unexpected new chapter to Gibbs’ story, reworking a vital element of his saga as told in the original series.

Gibbs And Diane’s Marriage Effectively Cancels Leroy And Lala’s Romance

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For a moment, NCIS: Origins got dangerously close to reopening its canceled romance story between Gibbs and Lala Dominguez. While it looked like the special agents would get together after their moment in the finale of NCIS: Origins Season 1, everything changed when Gibbs met Diane, the real estate agent who sold the home he lived in with Shannon.

As longtime viewers know, NCIS has established that Diane is Gibbs’s second wife and first ex-wife, whom he married in 1992, a year after Shannon’s murder. Played by Melinda McGraw in the original series, Diane returned to NCIS: Origins in Season 2 and was dating Gibbs, indicating that the prequel would forgo the romance between Leroy and Lala.

However, as Diane got a job in another city and Lala finally confronted Leroy, there was a small window for Gibbs to act on his feelings for his teammate. That said, he took Lala’s encouragement and used it as fuel to go after Diane, rather than apologize to Dominguez and pursue a romance with her instead.

For a short time, Leroy was single again and could have told Lala about his feelings for her, which everyone speculates he has, especially NIS members like Randy (Caleb Foote) and Mary Jo (Tyla Abercrumbie). Instead, Lala and Gibbs’ romance is effectively canceled for good, with his and Diane’s next couple of years predetermined by franchise lore.

NCIS: Origins Permanently Alters Gibbs’s Classic NCIS Story

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With the story in NCIS: Origins, Season 2, Episode 8, the franchise reframes one of the most vital aspects of Gibbs’ character. Especially in the earlier seasons of NCIS, Gibbs was oftentimes depicted as a womanizer, a man who had at least three ex-wives due to, apparently, his cold demeanor and emotional unavailability, which his job didn’t improve upon.

NCIS Season 3 began to explain what made Gibbs so callous, explaining he lost his wife and daughter, Shannon and Kelly, in a tragic car accident planned to kill them. NCIS: Origins has fleshed out the timeline surrounding this incident, but now it’s also taken on Gibbs and Diane’s story. In doing so, it has humanized both Gibbs and Diane.

In “End of the Road,” the prequel shows that, in rushing into his marriage with Diane, Gibbs was taking Lala’s advice. The impulsive decision helps explain why the relationship ultimately didn’t work out, but also reframes Gibbs as less of a womanizer and more of a hopeful, evolving person. Though it won’t pan out, the marriage is sweet for now.

Gibbs cared about his relationships in NCIS, and the prequel’s story better ties those qualities to Leroy’s second marriage. Audiences saw a glimpse of Gibbs’ care for Diane in NCIS Season 10, “Devil’s Trifecta,” which shows Gibbs reenacting his heartfelt proposal. Audiences know now that the proposal landed them in Vegas, thanks to NCIS: Origins.