NCIS: Origins Gave Me My Favorite Mike Franks Backstory Yet Thanks To The Show’s Adorable Dog

Warning: SPOILERS for the NCIS: Origins episode “The Beautiful Ballad of Gary Callahan” are ahead!

Last season on NCIS: Origins, viewers were treated to two episodes exploring Mike Franks’ past. The first showed how he and his brother ended up getting into the Vietnam War, and the second showed him meeting his now-ex-girlfriend Tish during a rough period in his life. Tonight on the 2026 TV schedule, the clock was wound back on Kyle Schmid’s character once more, and this is my favorite Mike backstory yet. That’s thanks to Origins’ adorable dog and all-around good boy Gary Callahan.

K-9 agent Gary Callahan is an integral component to the NIS Pendleton operation in 1992. While he’s primarily handled in the field by Herm Daniels, Mike Franks spends a lot of time with the dog, even frequently bringing him back home. Well, as revealed in “The Beautiful Ballad of Gary Callahan” (which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription), that’s because Mike was the one who found Gary in 1983 and got him into NIS.

Gary was the runt of his litter and with his hind legs underdeveloped, and after all his siblings were given away, he was dumped at a kill shelter. Thankfully, the pup was able to rise to all fours and run away with the cardboard box he’d been sitting in his whole life. For a while, Gary was living on the streets, but his luck changed when he met Mike Franks, who was working for Animal Control at the time and dispatched to collect the German Shepherd.

No one claimed Gary from Mike and Tish, and the dog was too much of a terror to keep at their home. Mike was even fired from Animal Control when he brought Gary along for a job that resulted in an unfortunate skunk incident. Luckily, Tish’s Uncle Tango, one of NCIS: Origins’ best recurring characters, heard that an NIS employee named Artie was starting a K-9 unit. So Mike agreed to give him to Artie and finally named him Gary Callahan after the trucking and shipping company logo printed on the box his furry friend had carried around. But there was one more surprise left, because when Mike attended the ceremony welcoming Gary into NIS, he was approached by Cliff Wheeler and recruited into the agency as well.

Watching NCIS: Origins delve into what Mike Franks and Gary Callahan are best buds, as well as sneak in how the former came to join NIS, was so heartwarming. It helped alleviate the stress of this episode’s present day storyline, where Gary was stabbed by a suspect. Don’t worry, not only did this good boy survive, but the initial prediction that he’d never walk again proved incorrect. He got up and took some steps forward during a ceremony awarding him for his courage and valor, so Gary stans can take comfort knowing we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.

We’re coming up on the final stretch of NCIS: Origins Season 2 episodes, which continue to air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. The good news is we’ll get to see Season 3 premiere in the fall. The bad news is that it’ll be another Gary Callahan-less summer, but I hope Mufasa, his actor, has a lot of fun days frolicking about in the sun during the hiatus.