NCIS: Origins has done a great job incorporating Leroy Jethro Gibbs’s story with the canon we know from the original NCIS. So what did we learn about how he got his start becoming an agent? It all started after he had gone to Mexico to hunt down Pedro Hernandez.
Gibbs had come back to the place he was staying when he destroyed the place in a fit of his rage. His landlady, Ruth, was angry when she saw what he did to her home and kicked him out. Unable to get back on his feet, especially since he had quit the Marines, he took to sleeping in his truck until Ruth saw him and allowed him to come back to the house.
In an attempt to work out what happened in Mexico, Gibbs tried to get into contact with Franks. However, the agent refused to speak with him, telling Gibbs he couldn’t be involved. Obviously, Franks needed to have plausible deniability, so having Gibbs confirm what happened would ruin this.
Who is Ruth on NCIS: Origins?
With Franks refusing to talk to him, it left Gibbs on his own, until he helped Ruth try to track down a group of boys who stole from her. This allowed them to grow closer.
Slowly, they built a bond with one another despite Ruth’s abrasive nature. She told Gibbs she wasn’t the best parent to her son while Gibbs revealed the truth about what happened to Hernandez. It was Ruth who gave Gibbs the idea to become an agent with NIS.
But when Gibbs graduated from FLETC, he came home to learn that Ruth was dying of blood cancer. Compounded with still grieving for his family and having a failed psych evaluation, Gibbs ended up in a bar fight.
When Gibbs was in lock-up, both Franks and Ruth showed up and Ruth confronted Franks about his behavior. She was instrumental in getting Franks to bring Gibbs on board. This was an amazing way to showcase how Gibbs had someone he could confide him who was removed from NIS as a whole.
Unfortunately, Ruth would pass away, as Gibbs learned in a phone call after Lala confronted him about Hernandez. She was still unable to trust him and was ready to be removed from the team until she saw him upset.
Gibbs, who had gone into the basement in order to put up shelves to organize the space, did end up confiding in Lala as well. Even though she wasn’t ready to trust him, she showed she could be a willing ear for him.
All in all, this was a great episode that allowed us to see how Gibbs had been struggling and hurting before he got the lifeline he needed that would lead him to his team.
There is also a mystery waiting to be solved once the show returns from midseason. Gibbs had accidentally knocked over some shredded paper, finding one that mentioned Operation Sundown. The camera also panned to a piece of shredded paper that mentioned Jamison “Bugs” Boyd, the criminal who is currently being profiled by Vera Strickland, having worked with a sniper. What exactly is all of this about? We’ll have to wait until 2025 to learn more.
New episodes of NCIS: Origin will return on Monday, January 27 at 10/9c.