SPOILER ALERT! This story contains details from the season finale of NCIS: Origins on CBS.
First, the upside: fans finally got to see Gibbs (Austin Stowell) and Lala (Mariel Molino) get up front and personal — and in a pool, no less.
The downside: it could be the last time the two almost lock lips.
In the action-packed finale of the NCIS prequel, Gibbs manages to escape arrest for killing the man who murdered his wife and children. But his freedom came at an enormous price: after going the extra mile to help Gibbs, Lala is seriously injured in a car accident after swerving to avoid a child.
Here, EPs/showrunners David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal explain how they came to the decision to put Lala’s life on the line, and why they decided to introduce two new characters that will surely up the stakes when the drama returns this fall on CBS.
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DEADLINE Let’s get technical for a bit. Obviously, you were looking for a way to take out Cecilia, better known as Lala. Did you go round and round on how you would do that? Was a car crash not your first choice?
DAVID J. NORTH We definitely had a lot of discussions in the writers’ room about how we wanted to end the season. I don’t know that I would necessarily say we always looked at it as how are we going to take out Cecilia? That’s an interesting way to put it. But we definitely had a lot of discussions about how we wanted to end the season. And at the end of the day, Gina and I like to tell stories that seem to be honest and true to us. I think everyone has had these experiences where you wake up one morning, and life’s ho-humming along and then all of a sudden something unthinkable happens. And lives are constantly colliding, and that was the theme of the beautiful finale that Gina wrote. In the end, this is sort of just where the story took us.
GINA LUCITA MONREAL But I think I we were always pretty set on an accident. And what we were tossing around in the writers’ room was how this accident happened, and how do we show that it was accidental? That it didn’t have something to do with whatever crime or whatever they were investigating. And then we finally landed on the Grace of it all, that there was this little girl that we could see that was not connected in any way to the other stories that we’re telling until they collide in the end. And I will also say that we don’t know the fate of Lala yet, and so that is something that we hope people tune into Season 2 to find out.
NORTH She didn’t look very good there at the end, though, I’ve gotta say. She looked in rough shape.
DEADLINE That was a particularly spectacular crash. Did it take several takes to pull off?
NORTH For us, doing a big crash like that, there are no re-dos. We had one try at the big crash, and luckily it pretty much panned out exactly how we were wanting. There was some VFX work that was done to it on the end, but overall, the stunt went well, and we were thrilled with it.
MONREAL And it wasn’t easy for Mariel to get in that little tiny space, get belted in there and hang upside down very still like that while the camera turned. So kudos to her – she’s always game for these challenges, and once again she really showed up for this.
DEADLINE So when did you know that Cecilia may not be long for this world? Did you know when you started the season that you would hurt her real bad?
NORTH We knew from the beginning going into this that we wanted to take big swings. That’s the one thing Gina and I always talked about. And [EP’s] Mark Harmon and Sean Harmon. Everyone knew what they were signing up for, including the cast. So we always feel like we can go whatever direction we want to go. And this was just essentially a big swing, and I know we’re excited to come back in season 2 and find out Lala’s fate.
DEADLINE I started to wonder if you were going to have Gibbs keep this secret that he killed Pedro, which didn’t make sense since Gibbs is a law abiding dude. But… did you consider that alternative? Everyone would keep the secret and move on with this heavy burden?
NORTH Well, we knew certainly in episode 10, in “Blue Bayou,” that Gibbs tells Ruth, and we obviously know that Franks has known that Gibbs killed Pedro because by giving him that folder he helped him do it. And then Lala obviously found out in a very dramatic way. So Gibbs couldn’t keep that hidden certainly from Ruth, and Franks was in on it, and with Lala, he was found out.
MONREAL There was a lot of interesting conversation around whether he would tell Randy. And we did several iterations where he didn’t tell him, and then where he did, and then ultimately landed on what you see in the finale. But it did make for some fun writing in figuring out how he would tell Randy and what Randy’s reaction would be. Because when Gibbs says, “Well, I didn’t tell you, Lala, and you got pretty upset” – because she’s saying we don’t want to tell Randy – it is true. So that was the one person where we kind of went back and forth on whether Gibbs would tell.
DEADLINE Back when Gibbs was in prison, and he supposedly called Ruth…did we hear in the episode that he admitted to killing Pedro? Or did you leave that out back then?
NORTH He admitted killing Pedro to her sitting in the back of the bed of the pickup truck, and we know in that episode that he called Ruth to come get him out of jail, the Provost Marshal’s Office. But no, we did not know that he was on the phone drunk and talking too loud with Ruth about the fact that he had killed Pedro. We learned that in the finale.
DEADLINE It was pretty sweet that you started the episode with Gibbs doing another puzzle.
MONREAL That all goes to what happened in the previous episode – that Gibbs had been going to this therapy group, and it seemed to be working for him. He was even trying to recruit other people to go to this therapy group with him, and then when he learns about Luke, that he is Sandman, it really pulls the rug out from underneath Gibbs, and we come to realize why Gibbs in the mothership does not like therapy and doesn’t want to go. I mean, this is really explaining that facet of who Gibbs is. So in the beginning of the finale, we see someone who is sort of struggling with how to deal with his inner turmoil now that he doesn’t have that group to go to and puzzling was one thing that gave him solace in the past. But here we see it’s not quite having the same effect as it did when Ruth was there. We see him thinking about her, and that is what leads him to getting those planks of wood, which we know become an integral part of his personality later.
DEADLINE So much going on in the episode! Why bring in Mike’s brother? Have you cast him yet?
NORTH We have always been interested in this story of Franks in Vietnam, and certainly in episode 13, Gina wrote a beautiful script of digging into veterans and what they go through. I’m really interested in this story with Franks and his brother personally, just because I write Franks in a way that he is loyal. Of all of his character defects, loyalty is not one of them. So for there to be this kind of rift between he and his own blood, something significant must have happened, and we look forward to digging into that in season. 2.
MONREAL And no, he has not been cast yet.
DEADLINE What was with the circling cameras in those scenes with Lala, Gibbs and Mike? Did you want to make us dizzy?
NORTH Yes.
MONREAL No, we didn’t want to make you dizzy! We wanted to find an interesting way to show the passage of time, and how these characters were sort of in a whirlwind, or a pressure cooker, and we thought that would be an interesting way to show that in a physical way, as well as us hearing the conversation that’s going on between them.
NORTH Here I thought it was the dizzy thing.
MONREAL And we wanted to make people dizzy.
DEADLINE And now the most important questions: Did you set that scene in the pool so we could see Austin without his shirt?
NORTH Yes.
MONREAL For me, I was actually more interested in what it did for Lala’s character because I felt it was important to show her in the beginning getting back to the roots of who she was, and she is a rule-breaker. You see her doing that throughout the episode, just in little ways. She walks over the table to get to Franks in that meeting room. She kicks in the door at Macy’s. So for me, presenting that pool was just a very clear way to get into the core of who Lala is. That’s what the pool was really servicing.
NORTH And the shirtless thing.
MONREAL And it was a bonus that we got to have Gibbs take his shirt off.
DEADLINE Lala and Gibbs almost kissed – but didn’t! You wanted to torture fans, didn’t you?
MONREAL No, we didn’t want to torture fans. We went back and forth many times in the room about whether or not they should kiss, and what we were really trying to do was remain true to the character of Gibbs and what he would do in this scenario. In our minds, they both really wanted to kiss. They were both ready to go there. But Gibbs has this enormous news to tell Lala- that he’s surrendered himself, that he surrendered his weapon to Macy, and it wouldn’t have been completely truthful in that moment for him to kiss her with this huge news that he has to tell her just looming. It wouldn’t have been fair, and I don’t think that’s something Gibbs would give into, no matter how much he wanted to.
DEADLINE You had the realtor, Diane (Kathleen Kenny), make a comment about Austin’s eyes. Essentially, you had her say what all of us are thinking. Why did you decide to put that in?
NORTH I think everyone knows how Gibbs is known for his eyes. Mark Harmon – I can already see him killing me if he reads this – but he has the most beautiful blue eyes ever. Steely blue eyes. And obviously our young Gibbs has that as well, maybe with a little help of contacts, but they pop and they’re beautiful, and it seems like something that Diane would have first said to him. They’re definitely striking.
MONREAL I think it’s very true to her character, too – just in one line to get how forward she is. She says it like it is. We know that about Diane. So I think it’s truthful to who she is as a character as well.
DEADLINE NCIS fans will recall that Diane will be Gibbs’ wife at some point. Why have her show up now? Is there a wedding planned for season 2?
MONREAL Well in canon, within our timeline she would show up now, and we always keep an eye on canon. We always want to honor canon and the original NCIS, and that’s what we’re doing here. So yes, they will get married, and we’ll see where that story takes us. But these moments in canon that are like these tentpoles for us are usually pretty challenging, in order to wrap all of our stories around that. But in the end, I think we find that it’s also rewarding because it pushes us to take the story to places that we might not have otherwise.
NORTH Wait, Gibbs is getting married again? Oh boy.
MONREAL We didn’t tell you, David?
NORTH I’m the last to know everything.
DEADLINE Where will you pick up next season?
NORTH We’re still kicking that around. We just now really wrapped post on the season finale that we’re so proud of, and the cast’s performances – we’re just so fortunate with this cast. One by one, they’re so phenomenal, and we can’t wait to get back to work with them. But as far as where we’re taking the story, it’s open. It’s an open runway.
MONREAL Thank you to our fans for coming on this journey with us and being so invested. We really appreciate that. We’re just so fortunate to be able to write these characters and to have people respond to them. And to our hardcore NCIS fans: Thank you for giving us a shot and sticking with us. And for our new fans: Thank you for giving us a shot. And we hope that people that haven’t seen the show before will give it a try and know that even though the mothership NCIS is a phenomenal show that they should check out, you don’t have to have seen episodes of the original NCIS in order to understand what’s going on here, and to take this journey with us.
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