'NCIS: Origins' Boss Explains Why They Skipped a Weekly Case for Winter Finale Episode

NCIS: Origins changed things up in the latest episode and didn’t have a weekly case that needed to be solved.

Showrunners David J. North and Gina Monreal are opening up about the decision to not have Gibbs solve a case in the show’s winter finale, which aired on Monday night (December 16).

The episode featured Gibbs forming a bond with his landlord Ruth and how that unexpected friendship affected the rest of his life.

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“I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that in the NCIS canon, we know Gibbs kills Pedro Hernandez and then suddenly he’s an NIS agent,” North told Deadline. “Gina and I just talked a lot and realized we’d love to see a story with Ruth and Gibbs. We think it’s really a story that matches who Gibbs is. He met Ruth when he had no one and he couldn’t even tell his own father that he had left the Marines. Ruth was there for him when no one else was. In the end we learn that Ruth really was the one that led him to believe that this could be a career for him. She saved him.”

North told The Wrap, “We had actress London Garcia, who plays Ruth. She came on to do a bit part where she showed Gibbs his apartment in Episode 7. And as Gina and I were trying to really figure out what did happen after Gibbs killed Pedro, we put our heads together, and Gina had this idea of if Ruth and he developed this friendship when he had no one else, and it really took off from there.”

He added, “We’re really proud of the episode and how it turned out. To our knowledge, this is the first episode in 1,000+ episodes that doesn’t have a case. And we’re really proud of it.”

Find out when new episodes of NCIS: Origins will air next.