After wondering for several months how Leroy Jethro Gibbs would say his official goodbye as the Special Agent in Charge of our favorite team of NCIS investigators, this week’s episode of the long-running series finally revealed the answer. And, while it seems likely that viewers will see the character again (possibly even before Season 19 ends), the days after Mark Harmon’s last episode as NCIS lead have still been filled with lots of emotional responses from fans and those who’ve worked with him. Now, Jamie Lee Curtis, who had a guest spot on the show, has opened up about working on the show and Harmon’s exit as Gibbs.
If you’ve only been watching NCIS for a few years (or even anytime after 2012), you might not realize that Jamie Lee Curtis of Halloween fame guest starred on the show during Season 9. Her character, the Pentagon's Psy Ops division director, Dr. Samantha Ryan, crosses paths with Gibbs and his team on a case, and does not make things easy for them. But, upon hearing about Mark Harmon’s last episode as the NCIS lead, Curtis took to Instagram to talk about her time on the series, and his big goodbye. Take a look!
Awww! Sweet, right? As Curtis noted in her post, she appeared in five episodes of NCIS, and if you read through all of her comments, you were probably able to put together that Samantha and Leroy Jethro eventually got past their strained working relationship. By the end of her first episode, after her having literally planted listening devices in Gibbs’ basement and him retaliating by showing up outside of her son’s school, which was a classified location, it’s clear that the two have mended fences and will begin a romance.
While that relationship between the two didn’t last long (she and her son had to flee from her ex once he was released from prison), it’s pretty clear that Curtis truly enjoyed her time working with her friend and everyone else on NCIS. With everything she’s done during her long career (which also includes movies like Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda, and TV shows like Scream Queens and New Girl), she still considers her five episode stint to be “one of the unexpected delights of my varied career,” and I’m sure that Harmon loves to hear it.
NCIS fans, as you might imagine, are plenty sad about Mark Harmon leaving the show as a regular presence, but, they do also seem to appreciate his long tenure and the fact that he was likely ready to do something else with his time for a while. Also, Harmon is still an executive producer, so it’s not impossible that we could see Gibbs come back to consult in upcoming seasons. Wouldn’t it be nice if we see that his time in Alaska somehow brought him back to Samantha? I bet Jamie Lee Curtis wouldn’t mind that, at all.
NCIS continues Season 19 on CBS, every Monday at 9 p.m. EST, but for more to watch in the coming weeks, check out our 2021 fall TV schedule!
