The NCIS prequel may have just killed off one of the members of the first team that Gibbs (Austin Stowell) worked with upon joining NIS.
The NCIS: Origins Season 1 finale ended with a shocking twist: After Lala (Mariel Molino) went to great lengths to keep Gibbs from facing consequences for killing the man who murdered his wife and daughter due to her friend Macy’s (Claire Berger) investigation, she got into a significant car accident on the way to tell him he was off the hook. Her car flipped, and she wasn’t looking good the last time we saw her. Furthermore, Gibbs’ voiceover (Mark Harmon) strongly suggested that Lala dies.
TV Insider caught up with Austin Stowell, Mariel Molino, and Kyle Schmid (Mike Franks) at CBS’s red carpet celebrating its Fall 2025 schedule recently. Read on for their thoughts on Lala’s fate and more.
Is there a young version of a character in the NCISverse you would like to see come into your world in Season 2?
Mariel Molino: Sure, why not a young DiNozzo [Michael Weatherly, now in the new spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva]?
Austin Stowell: [With Randy’s future uncertain,] we need a new funny guy. We got to have some smiles down in the office.
Molino: A young Ziva [Cote De Pablo] would be cool, too.
Do you think Lala is alive or dead?
Molino: We have no idea. We’ve seen the franchises kill …
Kyle Schmid: [Finishing] … major characters. They got rid of Franks [Muse Watson] in the original. They’ll take big swings.
Molino: Whether they do or not, I think that whatever happens, we know for sure that this event, whether it’s a death or not, has had an incredible impact on Gibbs as a character.
Stowell: There’s obviously a world where [Lala dying] makes sense in that it would explain so much of why Gibbs is the way he is and why he will not talk about this with anyone. Selfishly, as an actor, I hope and pray that [Mariel] stays right where she is because she is so talented and, as talented as she is, she’s also a wonderful human being. We are incredibly blessed to have the family that we do here on set — all of these people here on the show have become so close to me. We have become friends, and I don’t want to lose anybody [even though] and I know that it makes great drama. But that’s how I feel.
Really solid writers will come up with a way that will satisfy the audience and also make them go, oh, I didn’t think of it that way.
Schmid: Yeah. And our writers are damn good. So big thanks to David [J. North] and Gina [Lucita Monreal] for this entire season.
Do you guys have a favorite NCISverse couple?
Schmid: I like Jimmy [Palmer, played by Brian Dietzen] and Jessica [Knight, played by Katrina Law]. I like them.
Molino: I would have to say Ziva and DiNozzo.
Stowell: I would have to say I think Gibbs and Franks are their own couple. They have a bromance going on, and I can’t wait to show the audience more of that.
Schmid: Absolutely.
So Gibbs is in the early stages of his woodworking. We know he builds boats. If you guys got into woodworking, what would you want to build?
Stowell: I think this is for the two of them because we know what Gibbs’ [answer] is.
Molino: What would do you off-screen?
Stowell: I would build a dog house.
Molino: Oh, yes, you would.
Schmid: Oh, yes, you would live in it.
Stowell: I take care of [Mariel’s] dog from time to time and other folks’ dogs, I would make a nice little home.
Molino: He’s a good dog uncle. I would like to build a house.
Do you have any hopes for your characters? Is there anything you’d like to see them explore?
Molino: I would love to see Lala’s backstory, like get to see flashbacks of her. Who was she before she became a Marine, before she became an agent?
Stowell: I would like to see Lala as a Marine. What was that process like for a woman to go through in the late 1980s/early 1990s? It would have been very, very different. Let’s be honest, she would have really had to prove herself.
Molino: And put up with a lot.
Schmid: I’d like to see more of Franks’ past explored. He seems to be the man of many lives. He was a Marine. He was a drug mule, and somehow, he found his way and found his way to NIS. So I’d like to see that.
NCIS: Origins, Season 2, Fall 2025, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS
—Reporting by Michael Maloney
