Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “Homeward Bound” are ahead!
Last October, Adam Campbell reprised the young Donald “Ducky” Mallard on NCIS: Origins following his handful of appearances on the main NCIS series (which now also includes the shocking 500th episode). In “The Edge,” we learned the reason why Ducky started talking to bodies, and tonight Campbell’s take on the character returned on the 2026 TV schedule for “Homeward Bound.” And just like last time, Ducky latest Origins appearance answered a big questions concerning Leroy Jethro Gibbs, as well as helped me come up with a theory about another one.
We Learned Why Gibbs Decided To Start Boat-Building
Now before any NCIS: Origins fans get on my case, yes, I do remember when Ducky gave Gibbs the ship in a bottle at the end of “The Edge.” There’s no doubt that this gift sparked the hobby that Mark Harmon’s older version of him would do in his basement for the entirety of his run on NCIS. But there was still the question of why Austin Stowell’s younger Gibbs specifically decided to build his own boat after Ducky’s first visit to NIS Pendleton.
Well, after Gibbs told Ducky about how he was building his own boat, the bow-tied medical examiner told Lala, who wanted to see it for herself. Gibbs had admitted to Ducky that he had no idea why he was building the boat, and Ducky figured that Lala knew Gibbs well enough that she’d figure out the answer for both of them. Sure enough, Mariel Molino’s character said this upon seeing Gibbs’ craftsmanship.
It’s nice to have one thing that isn’t going anywhere.
For context, when Gibbs was checking in with Ducky for an update from him on this week’s case involving Doc Tango, one of NCIS: Origins’ best recurring characters and Ducky’s new friend (see what happened on that front by streaming “Homeward Bound” with your Paramount+ subscription), he mentioned that he’s had more time to work on the boat since his wife Diane started working in Los Angeles. So from Lala’s perspective, the boat-building provides Gibbs a degree of stability that he’s not getting from his marriage. It’s an insightful observation, for sure, but I also think this moment inadvertently is going to cause problems later on.
I Think Lala Will Play A Role In Gibbs And Diane’s Marriage Ending
While Gibbs was showing Lala his boat, he missed a call from Diane, who was hoping to talk to her new husband after a tough day at work. Now this by itself isn’t necessarily an issue, but I can’t help feeling that eventually Diane is going to learn about the complicated relationship Gibbs and Lala have. If she believes that these two still have romantic feelings for each other (and let’s be honest, they probably still do), that’s obviously going to cause problems.
We know from NCIS that Gibbs and Diane’s marriage ended sometime before 1995, when they were now living in Washington D.C. Things were already strained between them by the time Gibbs started hunting serial killer Kyle Boone and later interrogated him about the locations the bodies, and that, combined with Diane realizing that she could never compete with the memory of Shannon, his first wife, resulted in their divorce. But NCIS: Origins has tweaked NCIS canon a few times, like when it changed the circumstances of how Mike Franks met Gibbs’ dad. I can easily envision Lala factoring into why Gibbs and Diane didn’t stay together.
The only problem with my theory is that it’s still 1992 in NCIS: Origins Season 2. So if Gibbs and Diane divorced in 1994 at the latest, then Lala’s hypothetical role in the marriage ending would need to be handled delicately as part of a slow build to the relationship collapsing rather than the immediate cause of it. There are still five episodes left in Origins for this to be explored if the writers have indeed chose to go down this creative route. If not, there’s always Season 3 in the fall!
