ncis-will-episode-4-season-19-lead-gibbs-disappearing-again

‘NCIS’: Will Episode 4 of Season 19 Lead to Gibbs Disappearing Again?

NCIS fans, are you thinking that Gibbs is headed to Alaska never to be seen again? (At least not on the show anymore).

This Monday’s NCIS episode is called Great Wide Open. And it might as well be deemed Gibb’s Great Wide Sendoff. To what or where, we don’t know yet. News reports this summer suggested that Mark Harmon only wants to appear in a handful of episodes in season 19, perhaps fewer than five.

The first three episodes have been very Gibbs centric, as Paul Lemere, the demented contract killer, basically held a mirror up to our hero’s many flaws. Gibbs, throughout his career, has gone rogue, if it meant punishing the guilty. After all, this is a guy who killed the man who murdered his wife and daughter. At the end of last season, he beat up a suspect who was killing and torturing dogs. You can see the reasons why Gibbs committed these acts, but as a lawman, he shouldn’t be a vigilante.

There was a key scene in the last episode. Gibbs and Alden Parker (Gary Cole) were road tripping, taking Lemere (Jason Wiles) to upstate New York. But Parker, in the middle of the trip, told Gibbs he wanted to turn around and head back to D.C. This trip didn’t feel right, he said. Lemere was trying to bait them into doing something dangerous. While Parker was outside, trying to make a call, Gibbs ditched him and drove away with Lemere.

Michael Yarish/CBS ©2021 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Remember This Key NCIS Scene Between Gibbs, Killer?

Then, there was a significant NCIS scene. Lemere kept taunting Gibbs. He already knew too much about his history. Now, he knew what was in his head.

“I was relieved to learn there’s another person just like me, someone who could relate,” Lemere told Gibbs. “People like us, we live lonely lives.” And then he sticks the rhetorical knife in Gibbs’ gut, telling our NCIS hero that he’s “a killer, plain and simple, just like me.”

Lemire stepped on his own land mine at the end of the episode, blowing himself up. But before he died, he told Gibbs the name of a specific town in Alaska. As Gibbs planned his trip, he visited the graves of his wife and daughter. Gibbs’ name is on the headstone, too. This is where he plans to spend eternity. Was this foreshadowing or a writers’ head fake?

So Gibbs and McGee are headed to a small fishing village in southwestern Alaska for Monday’s episode. Back at NCIS headquarters, the agents figured out that four of Lemere’s victims had connections to a copper mine being built by Sonova Industries. Sonia Eberhart, the corporate CEO, hopped a flight to Alaska right after she gave very evasive answers to the NCIS questions.

Will Gibbs bring down an evil corporation then walk away?

Or, could he decide to stay in scenic, remote Alaska? Remember what his old friend, Fornell (Joe Spano) told Gibbs in the second NCIS episode this fall.

“You always find some way to justify staying in the hunt,” Fornell told Gibbs. “It’s all you do, and for how long, Mr. ‘Who am I without the job?’ … “Chasing bad guys may not be the answer anymore. Hell, it may even be the problem.”