NCIS has been a big hit for CBS since the pilot episode aired in September 2003 and features many well-crafted characters, including charming and likable Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon). Like The Rookie season 7 and Chicago P.D. season 12, NCIS is still as thrilling as the beginning of the series.
While fans loved watching Gibbs solve mysteries and motivate the people around him, he sadly left the show, and viewers have missed him. There’s a reason why another character took Gibbs’s place on NCIS, but thankfully, Gibbs’s final episode was moving and perfect.
Why Was Gibbs Replaced On NCIS?
Leroy Gibbs (Mark Harmon) on NCIS
Leory Gibbs was replaced on NCIS because Mark Harmon decided to leave the series. According to Soaps.sheknows.com, Harmon explained during the NCIS season 19 DVD special feature that he left because he wanted his acting career to feel “fresh.” He said:
“What has always drawn me here is the character I play and to keep it fresh and to keep it challenging. Plot-wise, this character has taken the path that it did. I thought it was honest and OK with.”
In 2024, Harmon appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show and talked about the busy schedule he had when playing Gibbs on NCIS. The actor said:
“I think for the longest time, I was just tired. Part of taking the job [involved] being home, with a young family, not traveling so much doing movies. The first day, we worked 22 hours. So I thought, ‘That’s not exactly what I thought this was going to be.’ But we had a lot of days like that in the first four years.”
Gibbs was replaced by FBI Special Agent Alden Parker (Gary Cole) in season 19. Like other procedurals such as Chicago P.D., The Rookie, and Ryan Murphy’s popular series 9-1-1, a lot of characters come and go on NCIS, and many of them leave a big impression on viewers.
Parker first appears in season 19, episode 2, “Nearly Departed,” and from that moment on, Parker’s character is similar to Gibbs’s. Parker is a tough, experienced, and quick-thinking agent who tries to inspire others to work hard but doesn’t suffer fools. Of course, since Gibbs was such a big part of why fans tuned into NCIS for almost 20 seasons, his shoes hard to fill. However, Cole does a great job playing the gruff and blunt but ultimately caring character. Both Parker and Gibbs are as smart and likable as the main characters like John Nolan (Nathan Fillion) on The Rookie.
What Was Gibbs’s Final NCIS Episode?
Leory Gibbs’s last NCIS episode is season 19, episode 4, “The Great Wide Open.” After working on a case in Naktok Bay, Alaska with Timothy McKee (Sean Murray) to stop a copper mine, Gibbs thinks carefully and realizes that he loves the quiet pace of life in that small town. Gibbs stays in Alaska and thinks about his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly, who passed away in a car accident several years ago. These deaths are as tragic as Nadia Decotis’s (Stella Maeve) on Chicago P.D. It’s awful that Gibbs has to live without his family, and while no one can ever replace them, NCIS fans know that he is starting to heal in Alaska.
While it can also be sad for an actor to leave one of their long-running characters behind, it sounds like Harmon was happy with the end of Gibbs’s time on NCIS. Harmon also narrates the prequel NCIS: Origins, which premiered in September 2024, and also made a cameo appearance in the series premiere. Like the Dexter prequel series Dexter: Original Sin, NCIS: Origins tells a new story about a beloved character. The series follows a young Gibbs (Austin Stowell) as he starts his exciting career.
