Leland Spears, Head Slaps and More Gibbs and Pride Easter Eggs, Explained (Exclusive)

As NCIS: Origins executive producer David J. North told TV Insider, the goal was to have as many Easter eggs as possible in the March 17 episode that introduces a young Dwayne Pride (Shea Buckner, in the role Scott Bakula played on NCIS: New Orleans).

Gibbs (Austin Stowell) is not at all happy to see the agent he’d previously encountered, and a flashback reveals just what happened between them in the past. But the two must work together on an undercover mission, setting the stage for the friendship we know they’ll have on NCIS. TV Insider spoke with executive producers Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North about this episode and the nods to the characters’ futures. Warning: Spoilers for NCIS: Origins Season 2 Episode 11 ahead!

Gibbs and Pride first met in New Orleans in 1981, when the former was out with his dad, Jackson (Robert Taylor). It was Jackson’s anniversary, and he was missing his late wife, and he ended up getting into it with Pride over the music being played. Pride punched him, and both Gibbs men were tossed out of the bar. But Pride seemingly doesn’t remember that when he and Gibbs cross paths over a dead body, infuriating him. As Pride later reveals, he just wanted to save him the shame of rehashing it — and he reveals Jackson took a swing at him first. (Jackson later confirms this.)

In NCIS Season 12’s “Blast From the Past,” written by North, we heard about Gibbs’ undercover identity of Leland Spears. Here, on Origins, that’s the ID he’s given for his and Pride’s undercover op. And while it’s Vera (Diany Rodriguez) who brings everyone together from the group that will come to be known as the Fed Five — Gibbs, Pride, Franks (Kyle Schmid), McLane (Mark Deklin), and Betts (Adam Kulbersh) — she’s pushed aside when it comes time for their work to be recognized once the case is closed. With Franks fawning over McLane, who has no problem trying to dismiss her, Vera gives him a wakeup call in the form of a head slap, a move that NCIS fans know well from Mark Harmon‘s Gibbs.

Below, executive producers Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North unpack the Pride origin story, those Easter eggs, and more. (Plus, read what Austin Stowell had to say about this episode here.)

When it came to Gibbs and Pride, was it important to have the rift, which is just on Gibbs’ part, really, going into this, be something that they had to be able to get past by the end of the episode?

Gina Lucita Monreal: Well, we know how they were when we first met them. So they were pretty close, and there was a lot of trust between them. So it wasn’t necessary to have them come together at the end of this episode, per se, but we wanted to at least plant the seed that, oh, these two, we can see how they become good friends in the future.

Greg Gayne/CBS

How much was that also about being able to explore Gibbs and his dad’s relationship at the same time?

David J. North: We’re always looking for ways to explore that dynamic between he and Jackson and Robert Taylor, who plays Jackson, is just phenomenal, and we always love having him back. So this felt like in sort of building on what we know about Gibbs and Pride, it just seemed like a natural fit to have Jackson in there.

Gibbs seems to listen to Pride when it comes to going with the flow and bringing Diane (Kathleen Kenny) to the bar. Is that because of that whole, it’s easier to talk and listen to a stranger versus those closest to you? Is it that he hears Pride is also married? Also, I love the nod to him and Linda (Paige Turco), considering we know how that ends up.

Monreal: Yep. Yeah, I think Gibbs is pretty shocked to learn that Pride is married. And in that moment, I think he’s thinking about, “Well, maybe this guy has a little bit more depth than I thought. Maybe there’s more to this guy than initially meets the eye.” And so yes, his advice to go with the flow definitely had an impact on Gibbs to bring Diane to the bar. And I think you are right that a lot of times it is easier to hear a stranger or for a stranger to be objective. And so I think that did have impact on Gibbs.

Speaking of “go with the flow,” is that a nod to laissez les bons temps rouler, “let the good times roll”?

Monreal: It is. It’s a take on that. And the phrase was going around like wildfire in the writer’s room. So yeah, it was discussed a lot.

What had you wanted to do with Lala (Mariel Molino) and Diane’s first meeting? And are there more scenes of the two of them and three with Gibbs coming?

Monreal: Well, the Gibbs and Diane relationship will continue to play out throughout the season and we’ll see how Lala is intertwined with that for sure. We needed the two of them to meet. They haven’t met yet. Diane is clearly a very important part of Gibbs’ life, and so is Lala. And I guess I would say that the meeting is a bit downplayed, but that’s because there’s so much underneath it. There’s so much that’s brewing underneath it that we’re yet to explore.

What are the chances of seeing Pride again this season or next?

North: It was really fun exploring that relationship with Gibbs, and of course, the Fed Five is formed. So, everybody, just stay tuned.

One of my favorite references in this episode was Gibbs going under Leland Spears, a cover which we knew about from “Blast from the Past” on NCIS (pictured below).

Monreal: Yep!

North: My mom named that episode. I wrote that episode, and my mom named it.

Monreal: She did?

North: She’s very proud of that. I was finishing it in Indiana.

Monreal: Go Mom.

North: And I said, “I need a title.” And my mom said, “What’s it about?” And I told her, and she goes, “How about ‘Blast From the Past’?”

Monty Brinton/CBS

It’s like she knew this series would be coming.

North: Yeah.

On Origins, McLane said that it’s an expedited backstop from a friend in DC. So is that a reference to Tom Morrow (Alan Dale) or to Michele Stark (Linda Gehringer), the Architect, or sort of both?

Monreal: We had to make the backstop match up with what we already said. I’m not sure if we’ll learn more about the backstop, but we did really enjoy putting it into this episode for people like you who would get the reference. At first, we put in the reference to Leland Spears and our researchers was like, “Does it really make sense?” Because the CIA was involved in all of that. So we kind of fit it together to make it make sense.

Also on NCIS, Gibbs said that he worked cases plural with that ID. So how much are we going to see of that on Origins? Will we start seeing Franks’ Edgar Braun at any point?

North: You never know. These sound like great ideas.

I love seeing these pieces of Pride that we know from NCIS: New Orleans, him playing the piano in a NOLA bar again, and also the bits about food. Talk about figuring out how much you’d lean into things like that.

North: Ron McGee, who wrote for NCIS: New Orleans for years and years, was one of the writers on this episode. And so he brought a lot of the Pride knowledge and all that. And we wanted to lean into the New Orleans of it all and put as many sort of Easter eggs in there for the NCISverse fans.

We’d seen a Fed Five photo, not this one, since the other one was for the Privileged Killer case, but you did put them in the same positions. Was that a given or was there any consideration to not, since it’s not exactly the same photo?

Monreal: I think we wanted to definitely do a nod to that photo. And I think putting them in the same position was a bigger nod, so we decided to go that way. But yeah, we’re not quite to the Privileged Killer yet.

Talk about using that moment to also show the misogyny back then, with Vera pushed out and Franks telling her if it had been them, it would’ve just been five other men. And what does that mean for Vera going forward? Because that was heartbreaking.

Monreal: It was. And we were really excited to incorporate Vera into that story. We always knew we had to touch on the Fed Five and play that because of canon, but we were really excited about the idea of enveloping Vera into that story because it already goes to her character. She’s always reaching for something more, and with communication between offices, so it felt like a perfect fit to have her involved. And then to have the rug pulled out from under her, yes, is a sign of the times, but also I think things like that fuel Vera’s character. So I’m excited to see where she goes next with it.

Greg Gayne/CBS

I absolutely loved Vera head slapping Franks. Talk about including that. Does this mean we could be getting the first Franks to Gibbs head slap this season?

Monreal and North: Oh!

North: Maybe. Sounds like Meredith may be onto something. [Both laugh]

When did you know you wanted to include that in this episode?

Monreal: That was a late addition to the story.

North: Late rewrite.

Monreal: Yeah, that was one of those that just kind of came to us. It wasn’t integrated into the story at all. And then we were taking a look at rewriting that scene and it just felt right in that moment.

I did appreciate the bit of a wake-up call that situation seems to be for Franks Regarding McLane, but is it really going to change much?

North: I think we want to stay true to the time. And so yeah, it’s a slow process change. I mean, and things still aren’t today what they should be with misogyny in that regard by a long shot. So yeah, no, it’s not going to change overnight. But in that moment, you kind of see where that Franks has a line, and in the way that McLane disrespected Vera, that was the line. But yeah, no, I think as far as certainly it’s not going to change as much as it should.

Monreal: I also just like the little moves that we see Franks doing and in the evolution of his character. If you think about the two pilot episodes where he’s basically calling Lala out for having a thing for Gibbs and in a really kind of awful way, and we see the growth from there to where he is now. It’s been little baby steps, and he’ll always be Franks, but to me it’s really interesting to see the growth of that character in just a really gradual way.

That just makes me think my favorite moment from the episode before this was Franks’ reaction to Gary Callahan being in lockdown.

North: Mine too.

Monreal: Wait ‘til you see the Gary Callahan episode!

What can you preview about that?

Monreal: It’s amazing.

North: Episode 14 is the full story of Gary Callahan and how he ended up at NIS and how he came into Franks’ life. And so he gets his own episode.

Talk about casting McLane. Because we know so much about him in the future, because we know about how the Privileged Killer case goes and what comes up in “Crescent City.”

Monreal: Well, that one, I felt like we had a little bit more space to play with because yes, we do know a lot about the McLane character, but there was a lot more blank space that we could play with in that one. We were just lucky to find the right guy who fit the way we needed him to look, but also the aura that we wanted him to have.

So then what did you want to do with the character of McLane?

Monreal: Well, in this episode, we were interested in showing how playing him and pride off of Gibbs and Frank’s and how these two duos interact with each other, specifically how Franks sees him at the beginning of the episode versus how his view of him changes at the end. So that’s mainly what we were looking for with the character in this episode. How we go forward with him in the Fed five remains to be seen. But yeah, in this episode, we’re most interested in seeing him play off the other characters like that.

The “Blast From the Past” NCIS episode made me check the timeline for Jenny Shepard (Lauren Holly) because her undercover identity also comes up in it, but it’s too soon to meet her. But can you say if there are any other younger versions of characters from any NCIS show coming up, or little mentions or nods to them coming up this season?

North: Maybe a little mention of Fornell [Lucas Dixon] again in the future, of course, and we maybe see him again, but yeah, we’re always looking at bringing in the younger versions. It’s a lot of fun.

Are there any nods to NCIS or NCIS: New Orleans when it comes to that Gibbs and Pride that didn’t make it into the episode?

North: Yeah, I don’t think so. I think we got in everything that we wanted to for sure.

Is there anything you can tease about the rest of the season, the finale, where it’s going to leave off?

North: It’s going to be explosive. We can’t wait for people to see it.

What relationship are you most excited to see fans’ reactions to going forward?

North: Gibbs and Lala.

What can you say about how that is going forward? Because we know they’re both now with relationships. I mean, hers is a little different than his, obviously, but still.

North: Yeah. We don’t want to give anything away, but we’re just really excited about where it’s going. And for those fans that are shipping those two, let’s just say that they should definitely stay tuned.

NCIS: Origins, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS