NCIS’ Most Iconic Gibbs Scene Only Took 10 Minutes To Write

Mark Harmon’s most iconic NCIS scene as Leroy Jethro Gibbs literally only took 10 minutes to write.

Five years ago, Harmon made his final appearance as Gibbs on NCIS in the season 19 episode “Great Wide Open,” which ended with the character deciding to stay in Naktok Bay, Alaska. In the episode’s final minutes, Gibbs told Sean Murray’s Timothy McGee that he felt a sense of peace in this place that he hadn’t experienced since before his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly were murdered. As it turns out, it took writers David J. North and Brendan Fehily less than half an hour to pen this portion of “Great Wide Open.”

During his appearance on Partners & Probies, North, who’s also the co-creator and showrunner of NCIS: Origins, recalled how writing “Great Wide Open” with Fehily was a “crazy thing” given how it was bidding farewell to a character Harmon had been playing for nearly 20 years. North, who joined NCIS as a producer in season 6, explained how his and Fehily’s writing process sees the former “pace around the room” and “just start dictating stuff,” and then the latter “collects his thoughts and puts them together, and then says ‘No, rearrange this or whatever.’” North continued:

We did Mark’s final scene in the river in Alaska, I’m telling you, no exaggeration, [in] probably 10 minutes. And I said to Brendan, like we had to rewrite other parts of the script. [Brendan] kept saying, “Well, what about this line or that?” And I said, “Just leave that shit. It’s going to be tweaked so many times. We’re going to have so many cooks in the kitchen on this thing. Just leave it. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.” We shot that word for word how we wrote it in 10 minutes. By the time we were in Alaska, in that river shooting that, and when we wrapped it, I turned to Brendan, I said “I can’t believe that was just what I vomited out in 10 minutes.”

Harmon debuted as Gibbs in the JAG two-parter “Ice Queen” and “Meltdown,” which functioned as NCIS’ backdoor pilot, and the show itself premiered five months later. He was joined in season 1’s main cast by Michael Weatherly, Sasha Alexander, Pauley Perrette, and David McCallum, all whom, aside from Alexander, were also introduced in those JAG episodes. Along with his on-camera work in NCIS first 18 seasons and the first four episodes of season 19, he became one of the show’s executive producers in season 6, and he retains that credit.

In 2024, Murray described Gibbs and McGee’s goodbye scene as one of his “favorite scenes” he’s done. Although Harmon hasn’t appeared on NCIS since “Great Wide Open,” it was strongly implied that Gibbs killed the man responsible for Leon Vance’s murder in the season 23 episode “Deal with the Devil.” Harmon also guest starred in four episodes of NCIS: New Orleans between 2014 and 2021.

Though it’s unclear if Harmon will ever appear on NCIS again, he remains attached to Gibbs through NCIS: Origins. Along with executive producing the prequel and narrating every episode as the character, he reprised Gibbs on camera in the pilot and season 2’s “Funny How Time Slips Away.” Harmon is set to appear in all of NCIS: Origins season 3‘s episodes for a present-day storyline, while Austin Stowell will continue to play the younger Gibbs in the show’s early 1990s setting.

Both NCIS season 24 and NCIS: Origins season 3 premiere Tuesday, October 6, at 8 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET, respectively, for CBS’ fall 2026 TV slate. Sandwiched between them is the new franchise entry NCIS: New York, which sees LL Cool J reprising Sam Hanna in a regular capacity following tenure in the entirety of NCIS: Los Angeles.