NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Incognito‘ is an episode about Lala, and an episode about Gibbs. It’s also an episode about what the two might one day be together. But above all, it’s an episode about double standards and what it takes to move forward when you don’t even know how to be the person someone else needs, much less expects you to be.
For Gibbs it’s not good enough to not be like the others—even though it is a step in the right direction. What Lala needs, what she deserves, is to be treated like someone’s equal. Not someone who can do the same job, but with an asterisk. Not someone who needs protection. By the end of the hour, he might not fully be there, but he surely has a clearer idea of who Lala is and what she can do. And from the voiceover, we know he always, always saw her not as someone trapped, but as someone fighting to redefine not just herself, but the world she was stuck in.
Is this just Gibbs the feminist? Is it something more? We will find out. For now, we’re interested, and that’s more than enough.
MORE: Here is our review of NCIS: Origins Episode 4. And NCIS: Origins Episode 5.
SHE FELT LIKE SHE WAS IN A BOX
NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Incognito’ focuses on Lala and on how hard it is to be a woman in basically any workplace that’s populated by mostly men, but how especially hard it is to be a woman in this one. And if things are still hard in 2024, if you still have to pretend to look the other way, if you still have to make yourself smaller at times to fit in, then imagine how bad it was in 1991.
That’s part of why Lala feels like she is in a box. In many ways, she is. And she didn’t put herself there. That’s just the hand she was dealt with, and sometimes finding your way out of the box other people put you in is hard. And finding people who can actually see through the box and notice the real you, that’s also hard.
Presumably, Lala has Eddie. But it doesn’t seem like she has the relationship with him that she wants to have, and that means the relationship just feelins stiffling, even when it shouldn’t. Even when it’s all perfect. Because even when she’s at home, she’s still pretending, just like she is with Franks and with Randy.
Yet, somehow, Gibbs has managed to peek inside the box. He isn’t fully in yet. He doesn’t know her, but he’s caught glimpses of the real Lala and this episode in particular establishes that he wants to know more. It might not be romantic, at least not yet, but the two of them are desperate to be seen for who they truly are—and no one else is really trying. That, for Gibbs, means someone seeing him instead of the baggage he carries and for Lala it means someone seeing her and not the walls she puts up. We’re not there yet, of course. But there is a path.
MORE: What did we think of NCIS: Origins Episode 1 & 2? Here’s our review! What about NCIS: Origins Episode 3?
IF YOU PUT YOURSELF IN A BOX AT HOME TOO
The thing about both Gibbs and Lala is that they’re not living. There isn’t anything outside of work, for either of them. Or at least, in Lala’s case, there isn’t really a her outside of work because shes’ always work Lala. She’s always protecting her heart. And Gibbs, well… he’s got a reason to do just that. But the fact remains that, until he can find a way to stop, he probably won’t feel like he’s living.
And it’s not that they see each other fully, not yet. It’s that they could. It’s that they’ve come closer than most other people have. For Gibbs, certainly since he lost his family. And for Lala, we don’t know, but it feels like it’s been a long time since she allowed herself to be anything but tough, all the time.
It’s very early in the show still, but we’ve been waiting for the moment where this show actually felt like it was going to start telling us how this story wasn’t actually about Gibbs, but about her. About Lala. NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Incognito’ truly starts us off on that journey. And though we can’t see the forest from the trees yet, we have a feeling when we get there it’s going to be way more satisfying than if we were only here to learn how Gibbs became Gibbs.
MORE: Is NCIS: Origins worth the watch? Here’s our spoiler-free NCIS: Origins review!
Things I think I think:
- “Workplace distractions.”
- “I didn’t know he said it until later. She didn’t usually repeat things like that.”
- It’s good to see the girls going out together.
- Celebrate Vera, she deserves it.
- “She told me she felt trapped. And she hated herself for feeling that way.”
- “What the hell is wrong with your lips?”
- Man, this episode made me so uncomfortable as a woman.
- Eddie is actually nice.
- Gibbs knowing more than Lala is so weird, lol.
- “You wanna talk about it?” and then just letting it go is FRIENDSHIP.
- Randy is my favorite sometimes, and then I remember how uncomfortable I was at the beginning of the episode. The 90s are weird.
- THE WAY LALA CLOCKED GIBBS.
- “I don’t need you to talk to Franks for me. I’m good.”
- LOL at the “new technology.”
- ARE YOU GOOD, THOUGH?
- I saw that look, Gibbs.
- “We got this.”
- I appreciate Franks a lot right now.
- NIS. What the hell is that?
- The way Lala took charge there was super hot.
- How’s she taking WHAT?
- “Always, always busting out of her box.”
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of NCIS: Origins Season 1, Episode 6 ‘Incognito’? Share with us in the comments below!
NCIS: Origins airs on Mondays at 10/9c on CBS.
