NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 8, “Sick as Our Secrets,” announces the arrival of Randy Randolf. Audiences have never seen Randy, or actor Caleb Foote, quite like they do in this installment. The storyline adds a whole new dimension to Randy’s character, making him more than the office golden boy or a source of comic relief. It’s exactly what the show needs as it continues to flesh out the world around a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
“Sick as Our Secrets” tells the story of a priest who is shot and killed during confessional. When it becomes clear that he was filling in for a colleague, Randy and Gibbs are tasked with protecting the intended target — and trying to get him to name the killer. But the episode is truly about the survivor’s guilt that Randy lives with, and how that connects to his relationship with Gibbs, just two episodes before audiences see the full extent of Gibbs’ own history.
NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 10 Is Randy’s Showcase
Caleb Foote Gives His Most Compelling Performance Yet
The biggest challenge for NCIS: Origins has been developing its supporting characters, so that it’s not just a story about young Gibbs and his mentor Mike Franks. At this point in the season, it’s done so with varying degrees of success. For the most part, Bernard “Randy” Randolf has been typecast as the eager to please, straight-laced agent who can also be used to inject some levity with his awkwardness. But there are tons of similarly eager, quirky crime-solvers on television. “Sick as Our Secrets” gives Randy some necessary depth, making him far more intriguing, and also giving the actor who plays him a prime opportunity.
Caleb Foote’s biggest TV role prior to this show was playing Bennett Hobbes in the second season of HBO’s black comedy Made For Love. He did previously guest star on NCIS: Los Angeles as Sean Reynolds in the episode “Kill Beale: Vol. 1,” but audiences aren’t used to seeing him as an action hero. Yet that’s exactly what he is in this episode, when Randy hears something outside the hotel room where he and Gibbs are holed up with their star witness, Father Bobby. Randy spots the crowbar-wielding man, chases him down a stairwell, and then the two of them engage in a hallway brawl that is one of the season’s best action sequences. It feels completely out of character for Randy — which is what makes it so great.
Randy Randolf: I think I saw two felonies on the way in from the parking lot.
It’s fine to have a more light-hearted character on a TV procedural, but that can’t be all they are. “Sick as Our Secrets” is a deep dive into what makes Randy tick, and the chance for viewers to appreciate him for different things. The script spells out how he was supposed to be the agent protecting Shannon and Kelly Gibbs on the day they died, and shows how that continues to impact him — and most importantly, not just in how it may affect his relationship with his new co-worker. It’d be easy to confine the drama to his dynamic with Gibbs, but NCIS: Origins gives Randy space as his own individual.
NCIS: Origins Has a Genuinely Moving Case of the Week
Episode 10 Is an Improvement Over Other Mysteries
Several episodes of NCIS: Origins have relied too much on crime drama tropes, and/or wrapped up their plotlines conveniently, often with some sort of a confession. Season 1, Episode 7, “One Flew Over” is just one example. It’s refreshing that the mystery in “Sick as Our Secrets” isn’t so easily wrangled. Obviously, the crux of the plot is the team getting Father Bobby to tell them who the murderer is. But there’s some plot points before that happens that the audience won’t see coming, such as the apparent “bad guys” just being would-be thieves, or the mention of Kowalski having been an Army chaplain. These elements are the difference between this episode and the more predictable ones before it.
There’s also a strong emotional component to the plot, which has been in other episodes, but hasn’t always been as effective as it is here. The conversation between Father Bobby and Randy is honestly poignant, as Randy opens up in a heartbreaking way and Father Bobby makes a very good point about Randy not forgetting his own family. It’s an emotional conversation, but it’s not maudlin or too on the nose. It simply exists, and that makes the show’s choice to have another metaphorical confession — Father Bobby telling Randy who shot his colleague — work this time. It’s the same kind of resolution, but it’s justified because now audiences have seen the context for it. And just as importantly, they’re invested in the context for it. They care about getting to that moment. NCIS: Origins still has some work to do on its cases of the week, but this one is a step in the right direction.
NCIS: Origins Puts Lala’s Career Advancement on Pause
Fans Will Debate Her Lack of Promotion
The main subplot in “Sick as Our Secrets” interestingly isn’t Randy’s relationship with Gibbs. Another show might have made the whole 42 minutes about just those two characters, with Randy unloading on Gibbs and then Gibbs doing the same. NCIS: Origins chooses to hold onto its cards for another day; instead, Gibbs wrestles with delivering a letter to the family of Agent Mitchell, the man who replaced Randy. One more nice detail about this episode is that Mitchell is treated as more than just a random name to fill in the blank. The show acknowledges him and his family. And it’s important that all this happens now — because in Episode 10, “Blue Bayou,” Gibbs has his emotional reckoning. By fitting in Randy’s piece of the puzzle, everything is coming together to make that critical high point feel complete.
Where audiences might lodge a complaint is in the story about Lala Dominguez angling for a promotion, and Mike Franks choosing not to recommend her for one. On one hand, it’s nice to hear something about Lala that isn’t about her personal life, given the ongoing Eddie situation that started in Episode 6, “Incognito.” But on the other, fans will have to decide if they agree with Franks’ assessment that Lala is better in the field. Some viewers may think Franks just did her career a huge disservice. Others may believe that he’s right and she’s too valuable a team member to lose. (Or remember that her being promoted would potentially mean actor Mariel Molino being phased out of the show, which obviously can’t happen.) The decision to end the episode with the cliffhanger of Vera Strickland interviewing Bugs is questionable, too, but just because the whole profiling storyline feels played out in the current TV climate. It would have been more impactful to let Randy have the last scene, since this episode truly belongs to him.
Overall, however, “Sick as Our Secrets” is one of the better NCIS: Origins episodes — both on its own merits and in the sense of what it means in the show’s big picture. It’s entertaining, but it also tugs at the heartstrings. And it takes a character who felt underused and underdeveloped and lets him come to life. This installment is proof that Origins has legs beyond the stories of young Gibbs and Franks, and that’s what the show needs to become just as successful as its predecessor.