NCIS season 19 spoilers: Gary Cole officially cast, not replacing Gibbs

Days after the reports first started to come in, it’s now official: Gary Cole is joining NCIS season 19. However, he is not playing the role that you would expect.

According to a new report coming in from TVLine, the Veep / The West Wing alum is going to be a series regular and his role is FBI Special Agent Alden Park. However, he is not going to be a replacement for Mark Harmon’s role of Jethro Gibbs. This is important since a “new Gibbs” would almost immediately be met with backlash from fans, especially since we’d rather see McGee step into that role if Gibbs is not going to be around. (We reported yesterday that Harmon may only be in a small handful of season 19 episodes.)

Check out our review of the NCIS season 18 finale! We discuss what happened to Gibbs, as well as Emily leaving the show. Also, SUBSCRIBE to Matt & Jess on YouTube to make sure you don’t miss out on any NCIS season 19 updates, plus coverage of other shows including Animal Kingdom and The Blacklist.

So why would an FBI Special Agent be suddenly around NCIS? That’s a question the new season will work on answering, as it could be tied to some sort of larger mystery. Maybe the show is working to set up conflict across a couple of different organizations, which does happen often in real-life law enforcement.

The one big struggle NCIS is going to run into here is strictly this: The lack of longtime cast members and nostalgia in the current cast. If Harmon and David McCallum are only appearing in a limited number of episodes, this leaves Sean Murray and Brian Dietzen as the only remaining actors with season 1 connections. Rocky Carroll joined a few seasons later as Vance, but then the vast majority of other characters are more recent including Torres and Kasie.

NCIS season 19 will premiere on CBS this fall, and in a brand-new timeslot Monday nights at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. We’re going to have more updates as we get a little closer to filming kicking off later this summer.

What do you think about Gary Cole officially joining NCIS season 19?

Be sure to share right now in the attached comments! Once you do that, be sure to stick around throughout the offseason for more scoop. (Photo: CBS.)

This article was written by Jess Carter.