Whether you watched Mark Harmon play Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS or have only just gotten acquainted with Austin Stowell’s version in NCIS: Origins, there’s at one important event in his life you likely know about: him murdering the man who killed his wife and daughter. Origins showed the specifics of how Gibbs found and shot drug dealer Pedro Hernandez. However, something like that can only stay secret for so long, and while Mike Franks and Lala Dominguez know what Gibbs did, another character we met in the original series is set to show up on the prequel later this month on the 2025 TV schedule looking into Hernandez’s murder.
Claire Berger, who previously appeared on The Midnight Club, is set to play the younger version of Lara Macy in the Origins Season 1 finale, titled “Cecilia.” The character was previously played by Louise Lombard in the NCIS Season 6 two-parter “Legend.” Those episodes served as the backdoor pilot for NCIS: Los Angeles, which ran for 14 seasons on CBS. However, when Los Angeles moved forward as a series, Lombard wasn’t brought back. Instead, Linda Hunt’s Hetty Lange took over as Operations Manager at LA”s Office of Special Projects.
As far the younger version of Lara Macy goes, Berger’s take on the character is described by TVLine as an ambitious Military Police Investigator “with sharp instincts and a relentless drive for justice.” She’s looking to make her name for herself and “isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo, especially in a male dominated world.” Lara will arrive at NIS’ Camp Pendleton office to uncover the truth behind Pedro Hernandez’s murder. Franks and Lala will do their best to protect Gibbs given what the drug dealer did to him, and eventually Lara will be forced to make a “tough call” on this matter.
Anyone who’s seen “Legend’ (and if you haven’t, I recommend streaming it with your Paramount+ subscription) knows what that tough call will be. Lara Macy ultimate decides to bury the evidence she finds implicating Leroy Jethro Gibbs for killing Pedro Hernandez, although Gibbs himself doesn’t learn about this until “Legend.” Sadly, that decision cost her her life nearly two decades later, as was was killed offscreen in NCIS Season 7 as part of a revenge plan against Gibbs carried out by Hernandez’s children.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to seeing Gibbs and Lara meeting under these awkward circumstances and the specific catalyst for her deciding not to turn him in. Did Mike Franks and Lala Dominguez persuade her to keep quiet or was it something else? And since Gibbs didn’t learn until 2009 that she protected him, what will he think in 1992 when this investigation suddenly comes to a close without him facing punishment?
We only have a few weeks to learn those answers and more. NCIS: Origins will also return in the fall for Season 2, and I wonder if there’s enough wiggle room in NCIS lore for Claire Berger to reappear as Lara Macy somewhere down the line. I guess we’ll just wait and see.
