'NCIS: Origins' Bosses Open Up About Lala's Fate — and the Canon Conundrum It Creates: 'We Have a Plan'

"We were worried about you."

Mere seconds into my Zoom call with Gina Lucita Monreal and David J. North, the NCIS: Origins co-showrunners headed me off at the pass by alluding to the TVLine op-ed I wrote back in May.

To refresh your memory: In the wake of the prequel spinoff's Season 1 finale, I asserted that it would best serve the show — namely, its "This is a story I don't tell, the story of her" conceit — if Special Agent Lala Dominguez (played by Mariel Molino) did not survive the violent flipping of her Jeep.

I posited that Gibbs (Austin Stowell) so tragically losing someone he had grown close to so quickly, especially after she'd gone to the mat for him by compelling MP Lara Macy to drop the Pedro Hernandez murder investigation, effectively explains why Lala's name had not once been uttered during Mark Harmon's 19-season NCIS run.

Lala, though, lives....

NCIS: Origins' Season 2 opener, penned by Monreal and directed by Niels Arden Oplev, had a bit of fun teasing Lala's actual fate, by first having Narrator Gibbs (Harmon) speak of Franks & Co. struggling to work cases "without Lala." But four minutes in, we witnessed an alive-and-scarred Lala doing some PT where she used to pool-hop, having sustaining a crushed thigh muscle, a collapsed lung and a TBI.

One-third of the way through the episode, Lala hitched a ride to a crime scene with Gary Callahan, to tackle her first field work since the crash. Gibbs, who hadn't spoken to Lala since her hospitalization, tried to ease her back into the mix, only to get sternly reprimanded when he pulled her out of a foot chase. But one darkroom heart-to-heart later, they and the rest of the reconstituted team appeared to be their old selves — as they launched into a "Good Vibrations" singalong in Franks' car, complete with a rapping Jethro.

Here is my conversation with showrunners Monreal and North, about whether Lala's fate was ever in question — and the corner into which they have now further painted themselves, canonically speaking.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: What did you think, back in May, when I wrote, "Lala's fate in my mind is non-negotiable. Her death, while tragic, would take a good finale and make it great because it was so resonant"?
GINA LUCITA MONREAL: So, we talked about that....
DAVID J. NORTH: I understood why you felt that way. I remember at the time telling Gina and Mariel [Molino] that "it's a great thing to have someone like him, that we respect, feel so passionately." But we have a plan, and we think it's one that's going to work in the longterm – with both the Gibbs we're seeing today, and it will make sense in the future, with Mark Harmon's Gibbs. We're confident with the story.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Was Lala's fate ever in question? Was Mariel ever worried?
GINA: It was never a question for David and I, though I will say when Mariel saw the final cut, she was like, "Wow. I'm dead." I think it hit her in a different kind of way. I don't think she expected it to look like it did, but, you know, we reassured her from the beginning.... We knew were not going to lose Lala or Mariel. We knew that from the get-go.
DAVID: Certainly she's not an actor that has any fear of anything, but it's one thing to to see that episode air and have essentially everyone online say, "Why did they do this?! They killed her!" Most people assumed she was dead, and I'm sure that's a little rattling. But I was surprised by the response.
GINA: Yeah, we didn't expect everyone to think she was dead — we expected it to be a split – so the reaction was surprising, though we were really touched that so many people had such an investment in this character.
DAVID: If I could just jump in, Matt, with one thing. It's hard in NCIS sometimes, especially when you toy at all with love interests for the Gibbs character, because a lot of the audience doesn't really want that [female] character. They've turned on a lot of those people that have been there, but the way Lala and Mariel won over those NCIS fans is pretty remarkable.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Talk about the somewhat-fiendish way you approached the cold open, with Narrator Gibbs talking about the team being "without Lala."
GINA: We knew we wanted it to be a big, emotional moment when we revealed that she was alive. And we thought it would be so fitting to bring it back to that pool, which has so much meaning because she had that near-kiss with Gibbs. To show her now recovering in that pool had meaning to us. We wanted to tease it out and give her that moment. You see the determination on her face, which to me is so fitting for that character.
DAVID: I'm a co-showrunner in this situation, reading what Gina wrote essentially as a fan, and I thought it was brilliantly handled with so much emotion. And then it's my job to collaborate with Niels Arden Oplev, the director, to make sure that opening comes to life. So we're really, really proud of it. Bringing the pool back in the way Gina did, it's just brilliant.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Nonetheless, this does keep alive the question: If Lala didn't die on the spot, in your mind is there a reason why Leroy Jethro Gibbs, through 19 seasons of NCIS, never mentioned Lala?
TOGETHER: Yes.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: [Incredulously] Yeah...?
TOGETHER: Yes.
DAVID: One-hundred percent yes.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Does Gibbs get hit with a blunt object at some point and just forgets about her...?
DAVID: [Laughs] I'll not only say that there's a reason, but there's one that will make you say "A-ha!" and feel like, "Wow...." You're going to give us kudos, but hopefully that'll be a little while from now, because this is the story.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Is Lala as recovered from the accident as she thinks she is?
GINA: No. She has this injury to her leg, she had a TBI.... We'll see elements of that playing into future episodes for sure.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Did you talk to Mariel about affecting a limp at all, because I was surprised that she arrived at the crime scene walking so gingerly.
GINA: We did talk about a limp, especially in that [later] chase scene.
DAVID: She does limp at the end of that chase scene, after running like that. But in the long run, for us, she went through so much grueling physical therapy that she for the most part can put that behind her. But like Gina said, there's still the mental side of it, the emotional side of being in a wreck like that and realizing it could all change with the snap of fingers.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Is Gibbs' new relationship with Diane (The Sex Lives of College Girls' Kathleen Kenny) in fact only some sort of salve, as Mary Jo (Tyla Abercrumbie) suggested?
GINA: No, I think Gibbs has his own unique relationship with Diane, and we're going to get to know Diane much better throughout this season. I think fans will understand what he sees in her, how they ended up together.... It's complicated, like in life, right? But there really are true feelings between Gibbs and Diane [who eventually marry].
DAVID: Even if someone starts as a distraction or partially a distraction — we've all experienced those relationships – they're always evolving, and they don't remain that way. Sometimes you can have someone in your life that is serving a certain purpose and then "the lights go on," and I think that's what happens with Gibbs.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: How how deep into the season will Lala meet Diane?
DAVID: Pretty early on.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Does she size her up? And/or vice versa?
DAVID: I think it's more that in that moment, we'll see Gibbs being not quite sure which direction to look in. [Laughs]

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Lastly, why Marky Mark? And why that song?
GINA: Why not! We wanted to, one, inject some music of the times, of course, but the feeling of the team coming back together and that sunny, happy vibe that we wanted to end with, was perfectly encapsulated in that song. And you know it feels right to have Randy (Caleb Foote) love that song.

MATT'S INSIDE LINE: Were you on set for the shooting of that singalong scene?
DAVID: We both were, and I'll tell you what... They were all phenomenal – I mean, Kyle [Schmid] doing the bass, Mariel singing into the CB radio, and Randy, of course — but Gina and I both looked at each other at the end and said, "I would have never believed I could see Gibbs rap and have it feel like Gibbs." That might have been Austin's top thing for me, because he somehow felt like a younger Gibbs rapping. I believed it, I really believed it. We were going for it no matter what, and I was going to see whether I believed that that was Gibbs doing it, and I did – and I'm a pretty good judge of what's Gibbs and what's not.