Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “Lean on Me” are ahead!If you watched the Mark Harmon years of NCIS, you know that Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ alternate first name might as well have been “Boss.” For almost the entirety of his tenure on the show, Gibbs commanded the show’s leading lineup of agents and exuded leadership qualities week after week. But he wasn’t always that way, as we’ve been seeing in the prequel NCIS: Origins, where Gibbs is played by Austin Stowell. However, the latest Origins Season 2 episode to premiere on the 2026 TV schedule showed Gibbs taking his first steps to become a leader, though the events that made this happen stressed me out a lot.Gibbs caught some flak from Kowalski early on in “Lean on Me” because he asked if Mary Jo could handle telling the office that Kowalski Cocktails, i.e. everyone getting together after work for drinks, rather than him. So Mike Franks did it on Kowalski’s behalf instead, and the Evidence Custodian was disappointed that the younger NIS agent didn’t understand that “a team leader takes significant information and acts on it.” Well, Gibbs certainly understood that when he was forced to take charge when it looked like a deadly virus might have been spread at the Camp Pendleton office.
