NCIS: Mark Harmon's Gibbs Would Return Under One Condition

Season 19, Episode 4, "Great Wide Open," of "NCIS" saw Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) bid farewell to the series. Harmon's departure dwindled the number of remaining original cast members from the pilot episode down to one — David McCallum's Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard. While there are other cast members from the first season hanging around, none carry the same weight as Gibbs, and fans are desperate to know if or when the habitual carpenter will make his stoic return. According to executive producer Steven D. Binder, Gibbs will return eventually — but only for the right story at the right time.

"There's always head space for him to come back. It just has to be the right story, I think, to get him excited about it and to get us excited about it," said Binder to TV Insider in 2022. "It's a card to play, and I don't think we want to play it cheaply. I think when we do play it, it really needs to be the right thing."

It's promising to know that the door isn't totally closed on Gibbs' eventual return. However, while fans wait to see if that moment ever arrives, the show's production team has other ways in mind to honor the legacy left by the character.

Until such a time that the creative team behind "NCIS" writes a story that will excite Mark Harmon enough to return, let alone justify such an entrance, Steven D. Binder is satisfied with Gibbs' presence being known in other ways. "Gibbs put his stamp on the team in a huge way, and it's gonna take more than a year for that to fade," said Binder to TV Insider, a year after Harmon left the series. "I wouldn't want it to fade because if I can't have Gibbs, I still love having his presence in there."

At the time of this writing, "NCIS" is between seasons, with Season 21 confirmed and on the way. There are rumors that Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo might return as Special Agents Anthony DiNozzo and Ziva David to reignite the fandom's favorite ship. Should that be the case, it's possible that "NCIS" will fight tooth and nail to guarantee the kind of story that would pull Harmon back so that the series could inject its marketing with pure, undiluted nostalgia. Conversely, the same justification could prove to keep Harmon away for even longer, so as to spread out the returns as much as possible, thereby guaranteeing viewership retention.

Either way, it's all speculation and hearsay at this point. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that there could be more Gibbs' slaps in the future.