Fans of NCIS might have to wait until Jan. 29 for a new episode, but EW won’t make you wait for your first peek at the Abby-centric hour, titled “Hit and Run.”

In the episode, a case comes in to NCIS that “strikes a chord” with Abby (Pauley Perrette), according to executive producer Gary Glasberg, and it “gets her thinking about a situation from her past and gets her questioning some things about who she is and why she’s there and what she does.”

“We’ve done origin stories before — as you know — and it’s always been fun to look back,” Glasberg says. “With Abby specifically, I started to wonder if it might be more interesting to look back — not so much as when she joined NCIS — but when she became interested in forensics and solving puzzles. In my mind, that goes back to her as a child, and the idea of seeing Abby Sciuto as a child intrigued everybody. [We wanted to do] it in this almost To Kill a Mockingbird manner and [figure] out how we could flash back to see when those seeds were planted of who Abby would become.” (See another photo below.)

Glasberg says “Hit and Run” will likely not be the last juicy origin story NCIS delivers. “I’m always interested in getting to know these people and getting to know where they come from and what made them who they are,” he says. “And after 10 seasons, to still have the opportunity to scratch away at that is a gift. We’re having fun with it.”

Fans are also presumably having fun. In the ratings race, NCIS is second to none — even Idol. In fact, this week’s episode, which aired Tuesday, was the decade-old show’s second-highest rated hour ever.

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