NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 4 ‘All’s Not Lost’ is again, a pretty solid episode that gives a little more nuance to Gibbs’ grief, and at the same time, starts to peel back to layers of his relationships with the people on the team. Because yes, Franks and Lala are worried about him as the team faces a case involving a missing girl, but unlike Gibbs’ first instinct, that’s not a bad thing. It means he’s not alone anymore – despite his loss, and that he’s got people that care what happens to him.
The episode also gives us a glimpse at the devastating moment when Gibbs found out what happened to Sharon and Kelly, a moment I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and that the show plays with as much truth as the circumstances allow. I’ve been there, in the moment after learning you’ve lost a loved one. The immediate feeling isn’t even of loss, it’s of hopelessness. What are you even doing here without them? That Gibbs experienced that doesn’t make him a less relatable character, if anything, it makes him someone we can understand all the better.
MORE: What did we think of NCIS: Origins Episode 1 & 2? Here’s our review! What about NCIS: Origins Episode 3?
SOMETHING TO COME HOME TO
The most shocking part of NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 4 ‘All’s Not Lost’ isn’t the reminder that Gibbs lost Sharon and Kelly, or the way the show takes us to the moment he found out, no, it was the fact that the show could make it seem both so gut-wrenching, and in a way, so real. The circumstances for Gibbs being what they are, can anyone blame him for just getting up as his team is getting ambushed, hoping he would get killed? Particularly when, at that moment, there likely wasn’t even a conscious thought behind it.
Because that’s the thing, and a little therapy would do Gibbs wonders – not that he’s going to listen, but the reality is that he didn’t actually try to kill himself in that moment, he just didn’t care if he died, and he didn’t care if he died in a particular moment where the disassociation was so big that he likely wasn’t even processing what was happening. If you just learned you lost your entire family, would you not just …go away, somewhere? In your head? Even for a little bit?
How he got from that ambush, from that moment to home, to more or less coping, to trying to move on, we don’t know. That’s the hardest part. The not dying, even if a part of you didn’t actually want to. Because there’s no denying that a part of you wouldn’t have minded if you did. That, at least, would have stopped the pain Gibbs has to live with every day.
MORE: Is NCIS: Origins worth the watch? Here’s our spoiler-free NCIS: Origins review!
IT WAS ONLY ME
The funny thing about NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 4 ‘All’s Not Lost’, if we can call it that, is that it frames Gibbs as someone not necessarily lonely – not in a way he can see, at least, but alone. And yet it’s not just about Gibbs, this show has proven it never is. It’s about Lala too, who seems to be in the same boat even though we know she has people in her personal life. Because the way she recognizes how Gibbs is doing feels very family – even if it’s not the same kind of loss she has experienced. Sometimes, when you see people breaking or about to break, they can be a reflection or a part of yourself that has been there before, and that’s where the sympathy comes from.
It’s more or less the same for Mary Jo, or it feels like it. Sure, everyone is acutely aware of how this case hits close to home for Gibbs because they’re people with empathy, but for a moment when Gibbs comes to check on the kid at the end, Mary Jo cracks. We don’t know enough about her yet, in fact, of the characters we have consistently spent time with she might be the one we know the least, but this episode clearly showcases that there’s deep pain behind the façade she puts on to be able to do the work every day.
And that, well …that means Gibbs isn’t really alone. Not just because he’s got people, but because the people around him can, in at least their own way, understand what he’s going through. Right now, he’s not at the point where that matters because he’s not ready to process it, but at some point, it will.
MORE: How was NCIS Season 22 Episode 1? And NCIS Season 22, Episode 2? We have a review of that too!
IT WAS ONLY ME… UNTIL IT WASN’T
The show isn’t even subtle with the way it frames the found family vibes and the way this team, these people, are going to be integral in shaping the Gibbs we will one day meet, the one who will also create a family out of the people around him. That has always been the mark of a good procedural, bringing a group of people together that seem like they don’t really fit together and finding a way to make them not just fit, but better each other.
For Gibbs, this is especially important because sometimes finding a reason to get up in the morning, to put one foot in front of the other, after you’ve lost everything you’ve built your life around, feels pretty impossible. But he did. We know that. It’s just about filling in the blanks of how. And NCIS: Origins feels like it’s peeling back the curtain of how.
And we’re not there yet, of course. Grief is never this easy a journey. But at least now there’s a path forward, and one we’re interested in following.
MORE: If you need a reminder of Gibbs’ rules, here they are!
Things I think I think:
- I like Franks’s wife(?) even though we’ve only seen very little of her. I cannot wait until we get to the bottom of that.
- Sometimes it’s jarring to remember this show is set in the 90s and everyone just made insensitive jokes about race and/or women in the workplace.
- “He’s used to it, he’s a redhead.” Poor Randy! He works hard.
- Ok, but I’m dying to find out what the deal is with Strickland and Franks, particularly considering what we already know of Strickland from NCIS.
- I find myself always being “Mike, what are you doing”? about Franks, except when he confronted that dude who lied.
- Everyone’s interactions with the kid in this episode killed me, because everyone was so gentle. Ofc, the fact that it was Gibbs, as a dad – even if his kid isn’t alive anymore, who got to her, remains my favorite thing.
- Lala’s face when Franks tells Mary Jo “no, because you’re both Blac,k.”
- Ok, I feel like we gotta take note about the fact that Gibbs knew the details about the toys his daughter liked, even though he was surely actively deployed for parts of her life, because he was a good dad.
- “Just because I lost my little girl doesn’t mean I can’t go in there and talk to that one.”
- The way he got her to open up, too.
- LOOK, if I cried as he cried over the toy, no one’s gotta know.
- “You’re not alone, I had my own …” What, Mary Jo? What?
- Also, Mary Jo almost took out the guy herself! Go you.
- “This is the job.” Yeah, but it doesn’t mean it’s not hard or that it’s bad that people care.
- Good man, bringing Tish flowers. Good man.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 4 ‘All’s Not Lost’? Share with us in the comments below!
NCIS: Origins airs on Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.
