Leroy Jethro Gibbs: Difference between revisions
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Even pathologist [[List of NCIS characters#Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard|Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard]] and Director Shepard, who had known Gibbs for many years longer than the rest of his team, had not known about Shannon until they discovered the file about her murder during Gibbs' coma in "Hiatus". |
Even pathologist [[List of NCIS characters#Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard|Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard]] and Director Shepard, who had known Gibbs for many years longer than the rest of his team, had not known about Shannon until they discovered the file about her murder during Gibbs' coma in "Hiatus". |
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One of his wives, Diane, later married [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Senior Special Agent Tobias Fornell ([[Joe Spano]]); Fornell later admitted to Gibbs that the marriage was "the biggest" mistake of his life. This was because when she had divorced them, she emptied their bank accounts, thus creating a spiky camaraderie between the two men. While Gibbs has no reason to associate with Diane, Fornell laments having to maintain relations with her, as she is the mother of his child. |
One of his wives, Diane, later married [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] Senior Special Agent Tobias Fornell ([[Joe Spano]]); Fornell later admitted to Gibbs that the marriage was "the biggest" mistake of his life. This was because when she had divorced them, she emptied their bank accounts, thus creating a spiky camaraderie between the two men. While Gibbs has no reason to associate with Diane, Fornell laments having to maintain relations with her, as she is the mother of his child. Gibbs and Fornell stage vicious arguments in front of others while privately they are on civil, if not friendly, terms. |
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Gibbs' wife Stephanie Flynn ([[Kathleen York]])<ref>Season 5, Episode 3 "Ex-File"</ref> lived with him during his service in [[Moscow, Russia]] for about a year. Each wife was a redhead like Shannon. |
Gibbs' wife Stephanie Flynn ([[Kathleen York]])<ref>Season 5, Episode 3 "Ex-File"</ref> lived with him during his service in [[Moscow, Russia]] for about a year. Each wife was a redhead like Shannon. |
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Revision as of 23:51, 29 November 2011
| Leroy Jethro Gibbs | |
|---|---|
| NCIS character | |
 Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs | |
| First appearance | "Ice Queen" (JAG) |
| Portrayed by | Mark Harmon Sean Harmon (Young Gibbs) |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Supervisory/senior Special Agent in Charge (NCIS) Former Gunnery Sergeant (Marine sniper and Military Police) (USMC) |
| Family | Jackson Gibbs (father) |
| Spouse | Shannon Gibbs (deceased) Diane Sterling[1] (divorced) Unknown (divorced) Stephanie Flynn (divorced) |
| Children | Kelly Gibbs (deceased) |
Leroy Jethro Gibbs[2] is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the CBS TV series NCIS. He is portrayed by Mark Harmon.
Background
Gibbs' age has never been revealed, but it was shown in the episode "Heartland" that he was born in rural Stillwater, Pennsylvania.[3] His father, Jackson Gibbs (played by Ralph Waite), owns a store ("Stillwater General Store") in the same town. It has been mentioned in the episode "Frame Up" that Gibbs' father was possibly in the United States Army Air Force because Gibbs refers to a pin-up on his father's P-51 Mustang. He is named after his father's friend, Leroy Jethro, who was his business partner in the store after having worked together in the coal mines (Winslow Mining Company).[4] The younger Gibbs left Stillwater in 1976 at the approximate age of 18-20[4] to join the Marines and, according to his own statements, did not return for over thirty years. In a flashback scene in the episode, Jethro often provoked violence with defiance to his father, who constantly comes to his unwanted aid with a Winchester rifle or shotgun. He was also known around the area as a delinquent, as said by the new sheriff, one of the other delinquents during his teenage years, stating "Funny, never expected to find you on the same side of the law."
A former Marine Gunnery Sergeant; Scout Sniper and Military Police NCO, Gibbs is portrayed as a consummate organizer, disciplined and demanding. These traits often put him in a stand-off with other authorities when they exert pressure on his team. In the JAG episode "Ice Queen", it is stated that he is a Marine reservist. Although he has not served as an active Marine in some time, he retains enough of his marksmanship skills to kill Ziva's captors in the premiere of season 7, "Truth or Consequences," from an exceptionally long distance and to out-shoot a professional hit-man in "South by Southwest."; That he is a deadshot marksman is further evidenced in "Hiatus" with flashbacks of him hitting a long-range headshot of his family's murderer, who was driving a moving vehicle; In "Jeopardy" he hits a kidnapper with a very swift killshot to the forehead---he takes this shot while kneeling from inside a car trunk, with his left hand. In the gunfight scene in "Bete Noire", with both men's weapons already drawn, Gibbs double-taps Ari Haswari to the chest (who, unknown to Gibbs, was wearing a vest) while Ari manages just one shot.
In "Under Covers," Abby Sciuto wishes him "happy birthday" on November 10, referring to the Marine Corps birthday.
Before the time in which NCIS is set, Gibbs travelled extensively on operations, particularly in Eastern Europe, demonstrated by many flashbacks, many including (now deceased) Director Jenny Shepard.
In the season 4 episode "Singled Out", McGee asks Gibbs how long he has been a special agent, to which Gibbs responds 16 years. This contradicts Gibbs statement in the JAG Season 8 Episode "Ice queen", when in response to CMDR Rabb's question, "How long have you been doing this Gibbs?", Gibbs responds, "19 years."
Marriages and liaisons
Gibbs has been married four times, and divorced three. His first marriage was kept a secret from nearly every one of Gibbs' current acquaintances until the episode "Hiatus (Part 1)". The first hint of Gibbs' first family comes in the episode "Honor Code." During this episode, Gibbs looks after the 6-year-old son, named Zach, of a kidnapped Navy officer, much to the admiration of his fellow agents and even his boss, who points out how well Gibbs works with kids and asks if he's ever considered having any of his own. The episode concludes with a brief collage of flashbacks of Gibbs spending time with the boy in his basement working on a boat that he has been building, with the boy wearing an old NIS sweatshirt, and then finally a clip of a younger Gibbs wearing his Marine uniform, holding a young girl, sanding the hull of a boat in Gibbs' basement, similar to the image seen of Gibbs and Zach.[5] By the start of season 3, Gibbs asks Ziva if she's prepared a dossier on him, and whether she knows of his "first wife and daughter." She answers "Yes."[6]
In the episode "Heartland", it is revealed via flashbacks that Gibbs met his first wife, Shannon, while waiting at the Stillwater train platform in 1976, at which point she tells him about her rules for life; these rules would inspire a similar set of Gibbs' own that he now teaches to his subordinate agents at NCIS.
Shannon, along with their eight-year-old daughter Kelly, was murdered by a Mexican drug dealer named Pedro Hernandez on the last official day of Operation Desert Storm (February 28, 1991, although the temporary internment markers seen in Gibbs' flashbacks during "Hiatus", as well as the dates of death in the NCIS files on their murder, place their deaths on the nonexistent February 29, 1991[7]); Gibbs had been an active member of the Marine Corps at the time and was still overseas when they were killed. In "Hiatus: Part 2" Jenny tells Ducky — who apparently never knew — that Shannon had witnessed a murder of a Marine at Camp Pendleton. She identified the murderer as Mexican-born drug dealer Pedro Hernandez. Hernandez apparently killed the NIS agent driving their minivan in a sniper attack. The subsequent crash took their lives. In the episode when Jenny tells Ducky that attempts to extradite Hernandez had failed and that the case remained open, Ducky responds that the case is closed. He correctly guesses that Gibbs would have later killed Hernandez for revenge.[8] According to the pilot episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles, Gibbs was suspected and, in fact, investigated in connection with Hernandez' murder, but the agent leading the investigation, Lara Macy (Louise Lombard), decided not to prosecute despite sufficient evidence, as she considered the killing justified. (She herself would later be murdered on the orders of Col. Merton Bell (Robert Patrick).)
Even pathologist Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard and Director Shepard, who had known Gibbs for many years longer than the rest of his team, had not known about Shannon until they discovered the file about her murder during Gibbs' coma in "Hiatus".
One of his wives, Diane, later married FBI Senior Special Agent Tobias Fornell (Joe Spano); Fornell later admitted to Gibbs that the marriage was "the biggest" mistake of his life. This was because when she had divorced them, she emptied their bank accounts, thus creating a spiky camaraderie between the two men. While Gibbs has no reason to associate with Diane, Fornell laments having to maintain relations with her, as she is the mother of his child. Gibbs and Fornell stage vicious arguments in front of others while privately they are on civil, if not friendly, terms.
Gibbs' wife Stephanie Flynn (Kathleen York)[9] lived with him during his service in Moscow, Russia for about a year. Each wife was a redhead like Shannon.
Ducky claims in the episode "Mind Games" that Gibbs' wife found it impossible to stay in their marriage when Gibbs was originally hunting serial killer Kyle Boone, but which wife he was referring to was never specified. According to Gibbs, she was the one who left him.
In the first season, Gibbs tells a suspect that he once caught his wife in bed with another man after he returned home from a "3 month float in the Med," after which he divorced her.
Gibbs also had a past romantic relationship with the (now deceased) director of NCIS, Jenny Shepard, who was also a redhead. In the first, second, and once during the third season, he was seen in the company of a mysterious (and never-identified) redheaded woman.[10] In season four, he has a steady, serious relationship with Army CID agent Lt. Col. Hollis Mann, but their relationship is revealed to be over at the beginning of season five, when Shepard reads a brief announcement in a military newsletter that Mann is retiring to Hawaii.
After Shannon's and Kelly's death and before he married his second wife, Gibbs is suggested to have had an affair with a woman named Rose in Colombia. He was on a drug interdiction mission as a Marine Scout Sniper, and was wounded during the mission. In the episode in which this is revealed, Rose's son is introduced as a person of interest in a case after Gibbs' Marine service number was found written in blood at a crime scene. Gibbs was suspected (by his team) of being the boy's father; but Gibbs later reveals to Rose's son that she was already pregnant with him when he came to their village, but leaves out that the drug lord Gibbs was sent to assassinate was, in fact, the boy's father.
In Season 7, Gibbs meets lawyer Margaret Allison Hart, who was sent by an old enemy (Col. Merton Bell) whom Gibbs had locked up in a Mexican prison. Though Gibbs and Hart oppose each other over many cases, they are also attracted to one another. In the end, when it turned out that Bell was responsible for the death of Lara Macy in connection with the long-ago murder of Pedro Hernandez, Hart turned her back on him, showing that she cared more for Gibbs than for her boss. She later prevented the report incriminating Gibbs for Hernandez's murder from reaching Mexico and gave it to him.
In the episode "Borderland", an unknown conspirator manipulates events so that Abby ends up investigating the murder as a cold case and finds irrefutable proof that Gibbs is responsible. Despite this, she is conflicted on whether to drop the case or pursue it. Lara Macy was found dead in the episode "Patriot Down". It was later revealed that these events were manipulated by Hernandez's now-grown children: Paloma Reynosa, the head of the Reynosa drug cartel, and Alejandro Rivera, a high-ranking official of the Mexican Justice Department. In the episode "Spider and the Fly", Gibbs manipulates Alejandro into killing Paloma, and Alejandro is subsequently arrested. Shortly thereafter, Director Vance files Abby's report deep in the NCIS evidence room.
Personality
Gibbs is a no-nonsense agent who displays a continuous urgency about the investigation he pursues, specifically when being given technical information about complex subject matter. The typical response to such information is "Give it to me in English", thus forcing the expert to get to the point, as well as making it easy for the audience to understand. He also displays elements of sarcasm particularly in relation to someone in his company stating something obvious. The typical sarcastic answer "Ya think?" is his preferred retort. He displays a degree of impatience toward high-tech hardware, as in the Season 4 episode "Witch Hunt" when he stomps a Roomba to pieces in order to prevent it from vacuuming up evidence at a crime scene. Gibbs also does not tolerate being interrupted when interrogating a suspect as McGee quickly learned first hand in Season 1 Episode 18, "unSEALED". After McGee goes into the interrogation room to inform Gibbs about a new lead in the case they were investigating, Gibbs follows him out in the hallway and before McGee can tell him what he found out, though he does not yell at McGee, Gibbs quietly but sternly warns him to "Never...interrupt an interrogation, McGee. Never."
When he thinks it absolutely necessary, he will turn over command of the team to one of his agents, as seen in the Season 6 episode "Bounce." Here, the murder of a Navy officer has apparent connections to an embezzlement case handled by Tony DiNozzo years earlier, so Gibbs trades places with him. The two resume their normal roles by the end of the episode. On rare occasions, if the usual judicial process is incapable of bringing a suspect to justice, he will turn a blind eye and allow "street justice" to run its course. One example occurs in the Season 3 episode "Iced," when a street gang member suspected of killing three of his subordinates must be released for a lack of evidence. Gibbs drops him off on a street corner where he runs into several angry gang members, who have learned of the circumstances through a visit to the NCIS morgue; the team later sees a TV news report that the suspect has been shot dead, but Gibbs suggests that they stop watching and get back to work.
He is a dedicated coffee drinker,[11] a fact played out with his team setting up someone to innocently drink or spill his coffee, incurring Gibbs' ire. In the episode "Forced Entry", when McGee unknowingly drinks Gibbs' coffee, an on-base security officer explains that rule #23 is "Never mess with a Marine's coffee if you want to live." At episode's end, Gibbs endows McGee with a cup of coffee as a thank you. In the episode "Hiatus (Part 1)", Ziva claims that if Gibbs had been killed in the explosion on the ship, the color of his guts would "be more coffee brown than red." Gibbs has dropped or voluntarily given up his coffee, of his own volition, three times; all three incidents have involved forensic scientist Abby Sciuto.
Gibbs has a very close relationship with Abby. He is extremely protective of and comfortable around Abby, often massaging her shoulders, and kissing her cheek when she does especially good work. He usually looks the other way in her style of dress and her quirks, because he knows that she does her job very well. He also brings her her favorite caffeine beverage, called Caf-Pow. On several occasions, Gibbs admitted Abby is his favorite.
His hobby is woodworking. Gibbs is shown to always have a wooden-hulled sailboat under construction in his basement, which he builds entirely by hand using no power tools. In the episode "Tribes", he tells FBI Agent Langer: "Finished it twice. This is number three." He later tells NCIS Director Jenny Shepard that he is working on his fourth boat, and that he named one of the previous boats after his (then current) wife when he finished it, then burned it after their divorce. When asked why he didn't simply sell it, Gibbs replies that he "couldn't stand to see someone else sailing Diane." Dr. Mallard tells Colonel Mann that another of Gibbs' boats was named after his daughter, Kelly. It is not revealed what Gibbs did with the other completed boats, nor how he could remove their twenty-five-foot hulls intact from his basement. When asked by McGee, Gibbs cryptically replied, "Just break the bottle." In the episode "Honor Code", when Gibbs is talking with a Lt. Commander's son, he does mention a possible method which would involve taking down part of his wall and hauling it out through the now wide enough space, thus breaking the bottle. Gibbs has also been shown making wooden toys around Christmas time, fixing the roof on Mike Franks' beach house, and offering to build Franks a teak hot tub.
One of Gibbs' "trademarks" is that he will often slap the members of his team on the back of the head when displeased with their performance or, if they get sidetracked on another topic, to get them focused back on the case. He does this more frequently to DiNozzo than the other members. When Gibbs "retired", and Tony gained his position as leader for a short while, Tony often slapped the team members in a similar fashion; in the episode "Hiatus (Part 2)", Mike Franks is shown slapping Gibbs in the same manner in a flashback. As revealed by Ducky in the episode "Mind Games", about ten years earlier he was just like Tony. When asked why he slaps his team only on the back of the head Gibbs responded, "A slap to the face would be humiliating. Back of the head is a wake-up call."[12] At one point he also threatens to slap Abby, though not on the head.[13] In the episode "Family Secret", Gibbs even slaps his own head for breaking chain-of-evidence rules. In "Driven," the team, including Gibbs, attends a sexual harassment seminar where they are told that the head slaps must stop or else they would face charges, but no charges or other consequences have come forth.
When somebody mentions the loss of children and wives, Gibbs rarely comments although he may react slightly. When Caitlin Todd was killed, Ducky, who at that point did not know of Shannon and Kelly's story, mentioned that Ari was targeting women and neither of them (Ducky or Gibbs) has ever lost a loved one, Gibbs paused and didn't say anything.
Gibbs still cared for Jenny at the time of her death and he was unable to open her body bag and look at her corpse.
In the episode "Faking It", it is revealed that Gibbs speaks fluent Russian, and he at least speaks a little Japanese and Chinese ("Call of Silence" and "My Other Left Foot", respectively). He also signs American Sign Language, which appears in many episodes in conversations with forensic scientist Abby Sciuto.[14]
In the episode "Heartland" it is revealed that he had bought a 1970's Dodge Challenger R/T which he planned to restore, but never did. Later in the same episode it turns out that his father had restored the car the way Gibbs wanted it. The car was yellow with a black hood stripe and was stated to have the 426 HEMI and R/T suspension package. He drove the car with a smile on his face the first time out. Before the Dodge Challenger, Gibbs drove a Ford F-250 as shown in "Shalom".
Awards and citations
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In the episodes "Model Behavior" and "Murder 2.0", Gibbs is awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award (example shown at right, top) . At the end of the episode "Murder 2.0", he was awarded his 7th Defense Meritorious Service Medal (example shown at right, bottom), but like the other six times, he did not attend the award ceremony, at which Tony accepts the medal on his behalf. When Gibbs shows no interest in it, Tony locks it in a box containing several similar presentation cases, all of which, as mentioned in the same episode by Tony, contain similar kinds of medals awarded to Gibbs. One of these medals is revealed to have been a Silver Star, which Gibbs bestows on Corporal Damon Werth in the episode "Corporal Punishment". It is revealed in the episode "Hiatus Pt. 1" that Gibbs received the Purple Heart while serving in Operation Desert Storm and was in a coma for nineteen days.
When Gibbs has appeared on-screen in his Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant's uniform, he has worn the following awards and decorations (in order of precedence):
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- Scuba Diver Insignia
- Marine Corps Parachutist Insignia
- Silver Star
- Purple Heart
- Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with two award stars
- Combat Action Ribbon
- Navy Unit Commendation
- Meritorious Unit Commendation with one service star
- Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal with one silver service star in lieu of 5 bronze service star
- Marine Corps Expeditionary Medal
- National Defense Service Medal with one service star
- Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
- Southwest Asia Service Medal
- Humanitarian Service Medal
- Sea Service Deployment Ribbon with three service stars
- Overseas Service Ribbon with one service star
- United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) Medal
- Saudi Arabian Liberation of Kuwait Medal
- Kuwaiti Liberation of Kuwait Medal
References
- ^ Marsi, Steve. "Gibbs' Ex-Wife on NCIS: First Look!". Retrieved 2011-10-21.
- ^ "Heartland". NCIS. CBS. 2008-10-14. No. 4, season 6
- ^ "Heartland". NCIS. Season 6. Episode 4. 2008-10-14. 4:44 minutes in. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ a b "Heartland". NCIS. Season 6. Episode 4. 2008-10-14. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ "Honor Code". NCIS. Season 3. Episode 1. 2005-11-01. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ "Kill Ari: Part 1". NCIS. Season 3. Episode 1. 2005-9-20. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Check date values in:|airdate=(help); Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ "Hiatus (Part 2)". NCIS. Season 3. Episode 24. May 16, 2006. 07:20 minutes in. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ Warneke, Ross (2004-05-13). "Death of Sunday movies". The Age. Melbourne. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
- ^ Season 5, Episode 3 "Ex-File"
- ^ Owen, Rob (2003-11-16). "TV Preview: "Navy NCIS" attempts to cover new ground". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
- ^ Keveney, Bill (2005-01-11). "'NCIS': CBS' invisible success". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-06-06.
- ^ "The Bone Yard". NCIS. Season 2. Episode 5. 2004-10-26. 10:10 minutes in. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ "Switch". NCIS. Season 3. Episode 5. 2005-10-18. 24:14 minutes in. CBS.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help) - ^ "Knockout". NCIS. Season 6. Episode 18. 2009-03-17. 13:49 minutes in.
{{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter|episodelink=ignored (|episode-link=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|serieslink=ignored (|series-link=suggested) (help)
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