Mark Harmon Returns as Gibbs in the NCIS: Origins Season 3 Premiere

Well, NCIS fans, this is not a drill. Mark Harmon is getting back in front of the camera as Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

CBS has revealed the storyline for the NCIS: Origins Season 3 premiere, “Don’t You Forget About Me,” and the episode will feature Harmon as present-day Gibbs. Until now, Harmon has remained part of Origins as its narrator and an executive producer, but the new season is bringing the older Gibbs directly into the story.

And apparently, retirement isn't going quite as peacefully as Gibbs hoped. According to CBS, “ghosts” from Gibbs' past catch up with him in present-day Alaska and shatter his peaceful retirement. The network isn't revealing exactly who — or what — comes looking for him, which immediately gives us approximately 500 questions.

The episode will still continue the show's 1992 storyline as well. Young Gibbs and the team race to rescue a kidnapped Randy, while Gibbs and Lala have to deal with what happened after their kiss.

That means the premiere is juggling two very different Gibbs problems across two timelines: Austin Stowell's younger Gibbs navigating his increasingly complicated relationship with Lala while Mark Harmon's present-day Gibbs discovers that apparently even hiding out in Alaska isn't enough to keep his past buried.

Bringing Harmon physically back into the world of NCIS also raises some very interesting possibilities for Origins. The series has always been framed through older Gibbs looking back at his life, but putting him on-screen gives the writers an opportunity to make the present-day timeline part of the story rather than simply the device through which Gibbs tells it. How much of that we'll actually get remains to be seen. For now, though, one thing is official: Gibbs is back.

NCIS: Origins Season 3 premieres Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streams on Paramount+.