NCIS: Origins season 2, episode 3 revolves almost completely around Adam Campbell as young Ducky, and that’s exactly how the CBS show should be.
SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers from NCIS: Origins Season 2, Episode 3.
Anyone who still thinks NCIS: Origins is just a “Gibbs prequel” needs only to watch Season 2, Episode 3, “The Edge.” This is an episode that almost entirely revolves around its guest star: actor Adam Campbell, reprising his role as a young Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard. And it’s also about Campbell’s predecessor David McCallum, who is present in his own way throughout the hour.
It’s generally a bad idea to let any TV episode orbit around a guest star, because the main characters—the people fans come to watch every week—get shortchanged, turning into props in their own backyard. But “The Edge” is different, because it’s not solely telling Ducky’s story or rehashing his history with Gibbs. It’s about how Ducky impacted the NIS team, and how they changed him, too. Mike Franks and Lala Dominguez especially have their own important parts to play and are given their own chances to grow; the end result is an episode that feels like a team story, even if it’s Campbell as Ducky who is at the core.
Campbell once again proves to NCIS viewers that he’s an inspired choice for the role of young Ducky. It’s one thing to be able to play the character’s eccentricities, but another to pull out the depth of emotion that he’s able to access. He’s capturing the spirit of Ducky, not just the factual details. The pivotal scene in which Ducky unleashes about how he could help living patients but can’t speak to the dead is amazing; it pulses with raw emotion—and then the lightbulb comes on for the fans, just as it does for the character. This is how Ducky developed his well-known habit of talking to his subjects, and it wouldn’t have happened without this one case at Camp Pendleton.
NCIS: Origins telling Ducky’s origin story, including repeated mentions of how his prior encounter with Gibbs convinced him to join NIS, is fun enough to watch. But what makes “The Edge” so excellent is that the script doesn’t stop there. Writer Margarita Matthews, working from an idea by Matthews and co-creator Gina Lucita Monreal, uses Ducky’s story as a springboard to see what else can be said about the core characters.“The Edge” slots perfectly into where NCIS: Origins Season 2 is as a whole.
Lala talks to Ducky about her recovery from her traumatic brain injury, using the example of how she no longer enjoys Kowalski’s sourdough bread, and reveals her fear that she’s becoming a different person since the accident. The moment in which Lala asks Kowalski to make her pumpernickel bread is technically insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but it means so much in terms of Lala putting herself out there emotionally, even in a small way, and maybe starting to make peace with herself.
Franks opens up about his concerns regarding Gary Callahan, and it’s Ducky who draws that necessary line between Gary’s depression and Franks’ own heartbreak, between Tish and his brother. No matter how close Franks is to the rest of the NIS team, it’s Ducky—a stranger Franks has been actively railing against—who’s able to get that message across. That scene is a perfect setup for Episode 4, which the audience already knows is a Franks family story. (It is worth, once again, calling out how much Kyle Schmid has brought to the role of Franks and his capacity for maintaining the character’s tough exterior while making viewers feel for him at the same time.)
Even the case of the week has something meaningful to say, as the victim actually turns out to be a hero: Mimi Lam chose to put herself into a freezer as she was dying, in order to ensure that justice was done for far more than her. It’s a little bit reminiscent of the First 48 episode “Snapshot,” in that Mimi helps solve her own murder. One of the most common mistakes in any procedural is that the weekly characters don’t feel like actual people. They’re more like props for the main characters to help, or arrest, or to get to some conclusion about themselves. Mimi does help Ducky have his epiphany—but viewers walk away having an appreciation for her, too.
Of course, NCIS: Origins wouldn’t be complete without some kind of Ducky and Gibbs moment, and “The Edge” delivers a doozy. Ducky’s parting gift of a ship in a bottle, which is itself a callback, is the thing that inspires Gibbs to start the actual boat-building that was a staple of NCIS for so many years. That’s another pleasant surprise—not something fans would immediately think of, but once it appears on screen, it makes perfect sense. This episode has a couple of moments like that, which simultaneously honor NCIS history while feeling fresh and new. And that’s the sweet spot that NCIS: Origins is always looking for.
Speaking of honor, an equally important part of the show is the choice to incorporate David McCallum through use of his music. This shows just how thoughtful the NCIS: Origins creative team is. They didn’t have to do anything of the sort; some viewers may not even have known until the end title card that McCallum’s music was included in the episode. But they understand McCallum’s importance to the NCIS franchise, and how iconic he was as a performer in multiple ways, and so they give him a beautiful space within this story. His presence is felt in sound and felt in Campbell’s performance. One thinks that McCallum would have been proud of this episode—not only in its portrayal of Ducky, but in how it’s a touching story about facing loss or fear or even death, and turning it into something positive.
NCIS: Origins airs Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Photo Credit: Courtesy of CBS.
Article content is (c)2020-2025 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
