NCIS: Origins has had a few plot holes so far, but the show’s latest episode just fixed one of its biggest mysteries about Mark Harmon’s Gibbs. Since its premiere, NCIS: Origins has mostly followed NCIS canon by featuring key characters and moments from Gibbs’ life in the early 1990s. The NCIS spinoff has especially ventured into Gibbs’ grief following the death of his wife and daughter.
As Austin Stowell’s Gibbs has mourned his old life, he has turned into a comparably softer character than Mark Harmon’s Gibbs in NCIS. The NCIS prequel even shows the young Gibbs attending a veterans’ support group. The character differences between Harmon’s and Stowell’s Gibbs have become one of the show’s biggest plot holes, but NCIS: Origins episode 15 just solved it.
Young Gibbs Attending A Veterans Support Group In NCIS: Origins Contradicts Gibbs’ Emotional Progress In NCIS
Young Gibbs Is Noticeably Different From Old Gibbs In NCIS
In NCIS: Origins, Gibbs is much more emotionally vulnerable to those around him, especially to his mentor and best friend, Mike Franks. The biggest example of this is seen in how Gibbs chooses to attend a veterans’ support group after contemplating joining for several months. NCIS: Origins episode 13, “Monsoon,” shows Gibbs meeting fellow veterans in a safe and calm environment. His decision to be vulnerable to strangers is a major step in his emotional progress. However, it contradicts Gibbs’ later emotional capacity in the flagship series.
Mark Harmon’s Gibbs is stoic, cold, and reserved. He rarely talks about his issues and, when he does, he does not usually continue the conversation at a later point. In fact, it took years of character development for Gibbs to even feel remotely comfortable opening up to his team about the loss of his family in the early seasons of NCIS. The reserved Gibbs in NCIS does not correlate with the young and emotionally mature Gibbs in NCIS: Origins seen attending support groups.
NCIS: Origins Episode 15 Reveals The Veterans Support Group Isn’t Helping Gibbs
Gibbs Struggles With Sharing His Problems
Despite attending the support group regularly, NCIS: Origins has confirmed that the group does not help Gibbs. NCIS: Origins episode 15, “From The Ashes,” shows Gibbs leaving the support group shortly after being asked to share his own experiences. Gibbs joined the group for help, but so far, he has only been able to listen to the others. He has not felt comfortable sharing his struggles in return.
“From The Ashes” goes even further and shows Gibbs revealing that only Franks has been able to help him emotionally. However, Gibbs’ issues have nothing to do with Franks. The reason Gibbs feels that only Franks has been able to help is because Gibbs has only ever opened up to Franks. As the agent in charge of Shannon and Kelly’s murder file, Franks has seen Gibbs go through the worst moments of his life. He has become both a mentor and a friend to Gibbs because Gibbs has let him in.
Gibbs does not have a relationship with anyone in NCIS that compares to the one he has with Franks in NCIS: Origins.
Therefore, the support group is not helping Gibbs because he won’t let it help him. He does not share his struggles, so the other veterans in the circle are not able to offer support and advice. Listening to other people’s struggles can only help so much. At some point, Gibbs needs to push past the block in his brain and let people in so that he can grieve and heal in a healthy manner. Unfortunately, NCIS canon shows that is not the case.
The Flagship Confirms That No One Was Really Able To Help Gibbs Fully Process His Grief
Gibbs Never Learns How To Open Up
Based on Gibbs’ emotionally reserved personality in NCIS, he never learned how to truly process his grief. When he joined NIS in the early 1990s, he learned how to throw himself into his work. In NCIS: Origins, Franks helps him deal with the immediate aftermath of the loss and encourages him to slowly start to piece his life together again, but beyond that, Gibbs is left alone. He doesn’t have a relationship with anyone in NCIS that compares to the one he has with Franks in NCIS: Origins.
In NCIS, Gibbs also struggles romantically. He has several wives and relationships, but they all fail, with many of them being short-term romances too. Gibbs’ struggles in his personal life could connect back to his inability to fully process his grief. He can never truly commit to his partners because of how devastating his first losses were, which act as a mental block. Maybe Gibbs’ life would have been different if he had learned how to open up, but that just isn’t his character and NCIS: Origins has reaffirmed that.
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