‘NCIS: Origins’ Star Kyle Schmid Teases Franks’ Origin Story Episode

Tonight’s new episode of NCIS: Origins will dig into the origin of Mike Franks and Kyle Schmid talked to PopCulture.com about what’s in store. In “Monsoon,” airing at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, “The team investigates the brutal murder of a veteran who fell on hard times after serving in Vietnam, leading Franks to reflect on his own struggles following the war. Also, Gibbs considers a new path forward.”

Schmid shared the episode is Franks’ origin story “where we delve into his past post-Vietnam. We get to see the lifestyle that he was kind of forced into due to the fact of the lack of government support, being rejected by the people that he fought for. Vietnam was a very political war. It was a very brutal war, and a lot of people were forced into positions when they returned home that were less fortunate.”

“And we get to see the origin story of how he met Tish, which is just kind of beautiful, young, and innocent kind of the backstory of these two kind of young, wonderful people kind of meeting one another,” Schmid continued. “And how important it is to have somebody to pull you out of the darkness when it doesn’t feel like you have so we delve into the Vietnam stuff. We have our typical case of the week and as a writer, you do so very well. They write these parallels in past and present that kind of bring everything full circle. It’s a really great episode.”

The episode comes after fans saw how and why Franks enlisted in the war, even going back to his iconic cowboy boots that he got from his brother. Schmid shared that watching “them cast the young version of me and my older brother” was a “fun experience” for him. He continued, “I can’t say enough about the young man that they cast. He could just approach the role with the same integrity that I do, and finding a young version of yourself is kind of me. And that’s been fun, but also, the makeup process and their process for this has been so fun to watch. They’re so so good at their jobs, and they want everything to be so perfect. Again, it is approaching the show with the integrity that it deserves at the level that we wanna look at.”

While NCIS: Origins has been digging into Gibbs’ origin story, of course, his is not the only one that is being explored and it seems like it is certainly Mike Franks’ turn. Fans have known the character since NCIS, and it will be exciting to see what happens. Make sure to tune in to a new episode of NCIS: Origins airing tonight at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.