Gibbs and DiNozzo Share the Screen Again After 10 Years
Gibbs and DiNozzo are back in the same room after 10 years.
Mark Harmon and Michael Weatherly reunite on screen in NCIS: Origins Season 3 Episode 3, titled “Return of the Mack,” which airs Tuesday, Oct. 20 on CBS, according to an official listing from Paramount Press Express. Paramount+ bills it as a Gibbs-DiNozzo reunion a decade in the making.
In the episode, present-day Gibbs travels back to NCIS headquarters in Washington, D.C. to ask for help from the agency’s new director, Tony DiNozzo. The show airs new episodes on Tuesdays, and this one is the third hour of the season, as noted by CBS.
The ask follows a violent start to the season. Gibbs was shot by unknown assailants in the Season 3 premiere, reported Deadline. The present-day mystery is tied to his 1990s days at Camp Pendleton.
That double timeline is the engine of the show. NCIS: Origins is a prequel, meaning a story set before the original series, following a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the early 1990s, years before the events of NCIS. Austin Stowell plays young Gibbs, with Mariel Molino as Lala. Harmon narrates the series and appears on screen this season in a season-long arc as present-day Gibbs. CBS lists the crime series as beginning in 2024, now in three seasons and rated TV-14.
Weatherly plays DiNozzo as the newly minted Director of NCIS. It caps a busy October for the character. Weatherly returned to the main NCIS series in its Season 24 premiere on Oct. 6, before crossing over to Origins.
Fans should not expect the old ritual. Showrunner David J. North, the writer in charge of the series day to day and an executive producer, told Deadline there is no head-slapping between Gibbs and DiNozzo in the reunion. North also said DiNozzo will appear in only one episode of Origins this season. So this is it, at least for now.
The previous week set the table. In the Oct. 13 episode, Bobby Moynihan guest-starred as Woody, who helped Gibbs reconstruct a fingerprint.
What makes this stand out is the history. Harmon led NCIS for years and Weatherly was an original cast member. For viewers who taped them back in the day or found them later on streaming, Tuesday is a short, sharp catch-up with two characters who grew up together on television.
