NCIS: ORIGINS has offered a painful explanation for Lala Dominguez’s absence from Gibbs’ later life: he says she died in a plane crash.
“And because they have such a rapport together, I think she’s able to know immediately that there’s a mountain of stuff about Lala that she doesn’t know about,” actress Emily Wickersham told TV Insider, describing what her character, Ellie Bishop, recognizes in Gibbs.
That leaves viewers with a claim from a famously guarded man, not a complete account of what happened to Lala. Spoilers follow for Season 3’s fourth episode, which brings Bishop into the present-day investigation and gives her a glimpse of someone Gibbs has kept close to his heart.
In the Oct. 27 episode, “Shimmy Shimmy Ya,” the earlier storyline follows the team in 1993 as it protects a general’s teenage son from a dangerous former gang member. In the present, actor Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs returns to his old basement, where Bishop joins him.
The two timelines meet through a photograph. According to TV Insider’s recap, the teenager takes a picture of young Gibbs, played by actor Austin Stowell, with fellow agent Lala, played by actress Mariel Molino.
Years later, Bishop sees the photograph and notices that the woman means more to Gibbs than an old work acquaintance. When Bishop asks whether Lala could be the other target in their investigation, Gibbs says she died long ago in a plane crash.
When TV Insider asked if viewers should believe him, Wickersham answered cautiously. She described Bishop’s confusion and how little the character knows about Lala, rather than confirming that Gibbs is lying or that Lala survived.
That distinction matters in a series built around the distance between what happened and what Gibbs is willing to share. His explanation supplies a new piece of the story, but the interview does not settle whether it is the whole truth.
CBS describes Season 3 as a present-day mystery connected to Gibbs’ Camp Pendleton years, with Harmon appearing throughout the season while Stowell carries the younger timeline. Lala’s place in that earlier life now bears directly on the questions Bishop is asking in the present.
Bishop also has practical work to do. TV Insider reported that she is tracking Roland Briggs, a former CIA contractor, after Tony DiNozzo calls her into the case; she and Gibbs eventually head toward Baltimore to pursue him.
“I don’t know if I can say much, but I feel like they kind of sink back into their old ways together and have each other’s back,” Wickersham said of her and Harmon’s characters working together again.
In a separate interview, Wickersham explained that Bishop and Gibbs now stand on more equal footing. Bishop still respects her former mentor, but her experiences away from the agency have changed what she brings to their partnership.
For now, that partnership gives Gibbs someone who can help pursue a threat while noticing the personal history he would rather leave unexplained. Bishop can see that Lala mattered; neither she nor the audience has the full story yet.