The way CBS’ NCIS left things, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was down, but he is not out. (Spoiler alert?)

That said, the man who just barely survives the shooting at the hands of a young terrorist recruit may not be the same one that we, Tony, Ducky et al have gotten to know so well over the years. With the Season 13 premiere fast approaching (on Tuesday, Sept. 22), TVLine presents the bulk of our Fall Preview Q&A with Gary Glasberg, the showrunenr behind TV’s most watched drama.

TVLINE | How do you pay off a cliffhanger that some might argue is a foregone conclusion?
You know better — on NCIS it’s never a foregone conclusion!

TVLINE | OK, but this is. [Laughs]
I’m not going to try to tell you that Gibbs isn’t coming back. Gibbs is coming back. But he goes through a really traumatic experience in this that changes him. We pick up right where we left off, and he’s rushed into surgery on an aircraft carrier, where we hook him up with a surgeon played by Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men). The whole first half of the show is this emotional roller coaster ride of Gibbs’ surgery and with this new character. Stop the BleedingI was a huge M*A*S*H fan when I was a kid, and I think there are many similarities humorwise in the type of work that we do on NCIS, so I really wanted to create this homage to the kind of writing that was done on that show, with Jon’s character — and Jon really delivers. At the end of it, he and Gibbs have established this doctor/patient bond, and in Gibbs going through this we’re going to see a more emotionally accessible Gibbs. We’re going to see some changes in Gibbs that are going to throw people a little bit. [Mark] Harmon is really doing some fantastic work right now in just little subtle nuances and changes. Physically you’re going to see changes. Emotionally you’re going to see changes. Things that you wouldn’t normally associate with Leroy Jethro Gibbs are going to happen.

TVLINE | I was going to ask: What were Mark Harmon’s hopes and wishes for the storyline?
My goal 13 seasons into a show is to give him something fresh and different and new to work with. By going through this sort of life-altering moment, it changes Gibbs’ perspective on the world. You have this very old-school view of what his job is and what being a federal agent is about, and then you end up getting shot and seriously injured by a 12-, 13-year-old kid. That in our mind changes everything.

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