The Emotional Reason Gibbs Leaves His Door Unlocked on NCIS!

Mark Harmon’s character, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, is known for the unique quirk of keeping his front door unlocked, a detail explained by one of Harmon’s former NCIS co-stars.

Currently, Cote de Pablo (Ziva David) and Michael Weatherly (Tony DiNozzo) co-host the Off Duty: An NCIS Rewatch podcast. In a recent episode, they were joined by Sean Murray, who explained why Gibbs prefers to leave his door unlocked. According to de Pablo, as reported by Screen Rant, the explanation stems from Gibbs’ traumatic loss of his family. De Pablo claimed that Gibbs’ loss made him believe that nothing worse could happen to him, so he was unconcerned about shutting his door.

“The answer is because he has already lost what was most important to him, so he actually doesn’t care,” de Pablo said.

New NCIS Series to Delve Deeper into Gibbs’ Backstory

The NCIS franchise will dig deeper into Gibbs’ origins with a new series, NCIS: Origins, which premieres this fall. Austin Stowell will play a younger Gibbs, with Mark Harmon returning as the narrator via voiceover work. The plot revolves around Gibbs joining the NIS Camp Pendleton office team led by Mike Franks (Kyle Schmid). Mark Harmon and his son, Sean Harmon, serve as executive producers.

Additionally, Cote de Pablo and Michael Weatherly are reuniting for a spinoff series, NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which will stream on Paramount+. This show will follow Tony and Ziva in Europe, though it is unclear if other familiar NCIS characters will appear.

The core NCIS series continues to thrive, with a 22nd season in the works despite Harmon’s departure as a series regular. NCIS: Sydney, an Australian spinoff, has been renewed for a second season following its 2023 premiere. However, NCIS: Hawai’i was discontinued after three seasons, unable to compete with the other franchise shows.