In tonight’s NCIS: Origins episode titled “Bend, Don’t Break,” the stakes are high as Gibbs faces a personal and professional challenge. The stakes are high. When someone is killed near Camp Pendleton, he and the NCIS team are dragged into a complicated investigation. Jackson Gibbs, Gibbs’ father shows up out of the blue which makes things more tense. There are mysteries about a murder investigation, a gun-smuggling ring and Gibbs’ battle with his own demons in this episode.
Key Events of NCIS: ORIGINS S01E03 – “Bend, Don’t Break”
• A murder at Camp Pendleton connects to a suburban mall in San Diego.
• Jackson Gibbs talks to Mike Franks about how he is feeling and his job at NCIS.
• NCIS finds out that a toy store is part of a ring that is smuggling drugs and guns.
• Gibbs disobeys orders and takes matters into his own hands, leading to a dramatic confrontation
NCIS: ORIGINS Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
The Investigation
The sad news that Emmett Sawyer’s body was found on a military base close to Camp Pendleton starts the episode. Emmett, a normal person, seems to have been dragged to the spot where he was killed. Because of drug evidence found near his body, NCIS is called in to look into it because they think someone in the military may have been involved.
As soon as Gibbs, Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid), and the rest of the team start their investigation, they find a drug-smuggling ring linked to a San Diego suburbia mall. Dougie was a drug dealer that Emmett worked with. Dougie sold drugs to military personnel that were hidden in toy eggs. Dougie tells the NCIS team that Emmett was killed by the ‘Mothman’ a mythical creature with red eyes and wings that is often seen as a sign of death. Franks and Gibbs don’t believe Dougie’s crazy story but Gibbs has a feeling that something is wrong with the case.
The Personal Conflict
Jackson, Gibbs’ father, shows up out of the blue while the investigation is going on. Jackson, played by Robert Taylor in Longmire, is very worried about his son’s mental health. He doesn’t think Gibbs is ready to work for NCIS because he is still dealing with the grief of losing his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly. Jackson talks to Mike Franks and tells him to fire Gibbs from the team. Jackson thinks that Gibbs’s fixation on the job is a way for him to hide his grief while putting himself in terrible danger.
Gibbs has always looked up to Franks, so he takes Jackson’s words seriously. He knows Gibbs is having a hard time, but he also sees potential in him and knows that the job could be the only way for Gibbs to get better. Franks decides to let Gibbs keep going even though Jackson begs him not to, but the tension between the two men grows throughout the episode.
Breaking the Case
Gibbs and his team find out that some military members were involved in sneaking guns through the local mall. This is a dramatic turn in the investigation. Prado, who is in charge of security at the mall, is thought to be running the operation, and NCIS thinks he may have killed Emmett to hide the crime. Gibbs takes matters into his own hands because he is fed up with how slowly things are moving forward.
Gibbs does something brave when he doesn’t follow Franks’ instructions and gets stuck in an elevator with Prado. Gibbs is determined to get Prado to confess. so he is mean and pushes him to the edge. Even though Prado says he helped smuggle guns, Gibbs knows that Prado had nothing to do with killing Emmett. Guns were hidden by the smuggling ring in mall toy stores, but Emmett’s death was an accident. One of the smugglers hit Emmett with their car by accident, got scared, and dumped his body on the military base to keep from being caught.
Gibbs’ gut feeling turns out to be right, and what he does helps catch the smuggling ring. Franks, on the other hand, doesn’t like Gibbs’s rogue behavior and thinks he’s too emotionally unstable to work in the field.
Fight Between Father and Son
The main emotional theme of the episode is how badly Gibbs and his father are getting along. Jackson tells his son straight out about Gibbs’s risky move with Prado after learning about it. In a powerful scene, Jackson says that Gibbs joined NCIS not to do the right thing, but to get revenge for the deaths of his wife and daughter. He thinks Gibbs is after Pedro Hernandez, the drug lord who killed them, and tells his son that getting even won’t make him feel better.
For his part, Gibbs is defiant. He tells his father that no one can understand how much pain he is in and that the only thing that matters is getting revenge on his family. “You don’t tell me what it’s worth!” Gibbs tells Jackson to leave. Jackson agrees quietly to go because he knows his son is too upset to do anything else. Jackson shows one last act of love before leaving. He replaces Gibbs’ old mattress with a new one and takes away a tin of “rules” that Gibbs and his late wife Shannon had made together, hoping that this will help his son in some small way.
Even though it hurt Jackson’s feelings, it’s clear that he loves his son very much. He tries to help Gibbs in the best way he knows how, even though he can’t change his path.
Franks’ Choice
Mike Franks isn’t sure if he wants to keep Gibbs on the field after seeing the angry fight between the father and son. He knows that Gibbs is still fragile from the losses in his life, but he also knows that Gibbs has strong instincts. It turns out that Franks doesn’t want to bench Gibbs. He knows that Gibbs needs NCIS more than he needs NCIS and that making cases may be the only way for Gibbs to get better.
Even though Gibbs was careless in this case, his actions show that he’s still useful to the team. Franks thinks Gibbs has a lot of potential and Jackson is afraid that NCIS will lead his son down a bad path. Gibbs’ character is still being shaped by this delicate balance between his personal demons and his work duties.
The actor who plays Jackson Gibbs, Robert Taylor, said in a TVLine interview that while Jackson is very worried about his son Jethro, he realizes he can’t stop him from following his risky path. Jackson will make a comeback in Episode 5, according to co-showrunner David J. North adding a distinctive dynamic. In addition, Gina Lucita Monreal hinted that Pedro Hernandez, a significant character in Gibbs’ past, will play a significant role in the narrative going forward, with additional revelations sure to thrill devoted viewers.
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