NCIS Origins season 2 premiere: Lala survives crash, returns to team

The NCIS Origins season 2 premiere, airing in 2025, resolved the season 1 cliffhanger by revealing that Special Agent Lala Dominguez, played by Mariel Molino, survived the car crash that left her unconscious. The episode, titled The Funky Bunch, picks up two months after the accident and follows Lala’s return to the NIS team as she confronts both the physical and emotional aftermath of the crash.

Showrunners David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal said the creative team always intended for Lala to return. They described the challenge of staging the premiere so it reminded viewers where the characters left off while establishing the consequences of the crash. North said Lala’s survival opens a longer arc of recovery and its effects on the team, adding that she sustains a traumatic brain injury and will battle related symptoms as the season progresses. Earlier remarks from actor Austin Stowell, who portrays Leroy Jethro Gibbs, had suggested Lala would be back “in some capacity. She went through a terrible accident, and anybody who would go through something like that, there are going to be adjustments and baby steps coming back into the workplace,” comments that some cast members...