Way back in NCIS Season 11, the episode “Under the Radar” introduced Vera Strickland, who was played by Roma Maffia and had once been the partner of the late Mike Franks, played by Muse Watson. Vera was never seen on NCIS again, but the Leroy Jethro Gibbs-focused prequel NCIS: Origins is set to feature her as one of the main characters, this time played by Diany Rodriguez. With less than two weeks to go Origins premieres on the 2024 TV schedule, co-showrunner Gina Lucita Monreal shared why it was important to include Vera in the newest of the NCIS shows.
Monreal, who shares showrunning duties with David North, acknowledged to TVLine that throwing Vera Strickland into the NCIS: Origins mix is a deep cut even for longtime NCIS fans, but laid out their rationale for why she needed to be one of the show’s principal players as follows:
It is a deep pull, but we looked at the timeline and she would have been there [at Camp Pendleton]. She was described [on NCIS] as Franks’ first partner… Vera has some mysterious elements as well, so being able to flesh out a character that was so clearly defined in that one [NCIS] episode has been really fun, for sure.
By the time Roma Maffia’s Vera Strickland showed up on NCIS, Mike Franks had been dead for several years, although Muse Watson continued to occasionally play the character as a figment of Gibbs’ imagination until Season 15. It would have been easy enough for her to simply remain one of the shows many guest characters and never appear or even be mentioned in the franchise again, but then NCIS: Origins came along. With the show taking place in 1991, Gina Lucita Monreal and David North figured out that it would make perfect sense for her to be around at the time that Austin Stowell’s Gibbs joins what was then known as NIS. However, by this point, she and Mike are no longer partnered together.
The good news is that Vera Strickland functions as almost a completely blank slate. Aside from those personality traits we saw on NCIS, her past with Mike Franks and knowing that she’ll still be alive in 2013, the Origins writers have free rein to do whatever they’d like with her. That means Diany Rodriguez will have plenty of room to leave her own stamp on the character, and at least she doesn’t have to worry about being killed off. Rodriguez’s Vera and Austin Stowell’s Gibbs are accompanied in the main Origins lineup by Kyle Schmid’s Mike Franks, Mariel Molino’s Lala Dominguez and Tyla Abercrombie’s Mary Jo Sullivan.
NCIS: Origins’ premieres Monday, October 14 after the first episode of NCIS Season 22. You’ll be able to stream new episodes of both shows after they air on CBS with a Paramount+ subscription.