NCIS: Origins Season 1 answered filled in quite a few gaps in Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ past, from the two-part premiere showing how he developed his taste for bourbon, to the Season 1 finale depicting him meeting Diane, his future second wife, amidst the shocking Lala twist. But there’s still plenty more aspects of the original NCIS lead’s life pre-2003 left to be filled in for Origins Season 2, which will premiere on the 2025 TV schedule this fall. Fortunately for fans, a tie-in to NCIS: New Orleans is already being formulated, which co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal shared while discussing the importance of honoring canon in the CBS prequel.
Monreal, who shares showrunning duties David J. North, informed TVLine that NCIS: Origins will eventually address the Fed 5, i.e. the team of law enforcement officers that consisted of Gibbs, Mike Franks, New Orleans’ Dwayne Pride, Felix Betts and Dan McLane. It’s another example of Origins making the effort to acknowledge history established by the procedural franchise’s flagship show, with Monreal saying:
We always have our eye on canon. We have a big huge timeline in the writers room and we’re really strict about sticking to it. The canon matters to us, and we never want to ignore it. So, all the things that we’re seeing in canon, we will address one way or another.
Just like NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans was set up in a two-part backdoor pilot on NCIS, with “Crescent City” airing during Season 11. In those episodes, we met Dwayne Pride, the Special Agent in Charge of NCIS’ New Orleans Office who was played by Scott Bakula. Pride and Gibbs reunited when McLane, who’d been in charge of the Fed 5 and later became a Congressman, was found murdered in the Big Easy. Betts also appeared in the second part of the backdoor pilot, which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription.
The Fed 5 was formed 20 years prior to the events of “Crescent City,” a time when Gibbs and Pride were still probationary agents. These five men apprehended Spencer Hanlon, a.k.a. the Privileged Killer, who targeted active and former members of the United States Marine Corps. After “Crescent City” (by which point Mike Franks was already dead), NCIS: New Orleans premiered in fall 2011 and ran for seven seasons on CBS.
NCIS: Origins has already bent canon a few times, like when it was shown that Mike Franks and Jackson Gibbs already knew each other, even though their first meeting had been depicted in the NCIS Season 8 premiere. But for the most part, as Gina Lucita Monreal laid out, this prequel takes NCIS history seriously, and this is the point in the timeline where the Fed 5 came together. So while we don’t know when specifically this NCIS: New Orleans tie-in will happen, it’s definitely coming. Now I’m looking forward to seeing who will play the young Dwayne Pride.
NCIS: Origins Season 2 will air Mondays at 9 pm ET on CBS’ 2025-2026 fall lineup, sandwiched between NCIS Season 23 and NCIS: Sydney Season 3. NCIS: Tony & Ziva will also premiere exclusively on Paramount+ around the same time.
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