‘NCIS: Origins’ To Reunite Muse Watson, Roma Maffia & Joe Spano With Mark Harmon In Season 3

EXCLUSIVE: Mark Harmon will be welcoming more of his NCIS friends on NCIS: Origins‘ third season.

Muse Watson, Roma Maffia and Joe Spano will each appear in separate episodes of the present timeline, reprising their roles as Mike Franks, Vera Strickland and Tobias Fornell, respectively. Watson will appear in Episode 306 airing November 17, Maffia in Episode 307 airing December 1, and Spano in Episode 308 airing December 8.

This season of NCIS: Origins, Harmon is back as Leroy Jethro Gibbs as part of a special present-day timeline connected to his ‘90s Camp Pendleton days, running concurrently with the show’s original past timeline. Yes, there are two Gibbs running around at a time: one played by Harmon and the other by Austin Stowell, who leads the prequel.

Franks, Vera and Fornell will be part of the present timeline with Older Gibbs, with each providing key insight into the truth behind Lala Dominguez’s (Mariel Molino) disappearance and the events that shaped young Gibbs and the Origins team decades earlier.

The trio follows the previously announced guest stars like Michael Weatherly, the new director Tony DiNozzo, appearing in Episode 3, and Emily Wickersham as Eleanor “Ellie” Bishop, who made her debut in the October 27th episode, with multiple episodes to follow this season.

This will be the first time Spano will appear on the CBS prequel series, and the first time he and Harmon will share the screen after last appearing together on NCIS in 2021 (Season 18, Episode 5). Spano has played the former FBI Special Agent who became one of Gibbs’ closest friends and longtime allies since NCIS premiered in 2003. Gibbs and Fornell are one of the most iconic duos in NCIS history, defined by a frenemy-turned-brotherhood dynamic. They began as professional rivals and ended as chosen family. A young Tobias Fornell appeared on Season 1 Episode 6 of NCIS: Origins, played by Lucas Dixon.

In Episode 308, Spano and Gibbs team up as the latter follows a dangerous new lead. A photo from his appearance can be found above.

Watson and Maffia brought back their fan-favorite characters on a special crossover episode of NCIS: Origins and NCIS in 2025. However, neither Franks nor Strickland reunited with Gibbs in the episode. In the upcoming Episodes 306 and 307, both will share scenes with Gibbs for the first time since NCIS Season 15, Episode 8 for Watson and Season 11, Episode 3 for Maffia.

Watson, whose character died in Season 8 of NCIS, has previously appeared to Gibbs as a ghost on the original series. In the Origins Season 2 crossover, Franks was a visual time-lapse morphing sequence at the end of the episode, transforming Kyle Schmid’s “Young Mike Franks” into Watson’s older version to show the lifelong burden of an unsolved case. In the upcoming Episode 306, Frank’s return sheds new light on the mystery about what happened to Lala.

Maffia’s character Vera was Franks’ old partner on NCIS. Her appearance last season in the crossover was to help the modern-day NCIS team solve a 30-year-old cold case. In Episode 307, she helps Gibbs in his search for answers, leading him back to a familiar face from his past.

NCIS: Origins is produced by CBS Studios. Season 3 executive producers are David J. North, Mark Harmon, Sean Harmon, Michele Greco and Eric Christian Olsen.