NCIS: Origins adds a new piece to the Fed Five’s origin story: Vera Strickland helps bring the agents together, but the men receive the credit. The episode changes how viewers understand the group’s formation—not the established five-member roster.
Who are the Fed Five on NCIS?
The Fed Five are Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Dwayne Pride, Mike Franks, Dan McLane, and Felix Betts. Their history was introduced in “Crescent City,” the two-part NCIS Season 11 backdoor pilot for NCIS: New Orleans. TV Insider’s coverage of the earlier Fed Five story identifies the five agents and connects their history to “Crescent City.”
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Did NCIS: Origins change the Fed Five canon?
Not by replacing any of the five agents. In Season 2, Episode 11, “Feelin’ Alright?,” the series adds Vera’s previously unseen contribution to the group’s formation. Executive producer David J. North said the episode was set at the point when the Fed Five would “really start,” and that the production wanted to “stick to canon,” in a TV Insider interview published March 17, 2026. The earlier Fed Five coverage establishes the familiar roster; the episode interview explains the new material.
That distinction matters: “rewrite” is fair only in the sense that the episode revises the audience’s picture of who helped the team come together. It does not establish Vera as a sixth member or change the later history of the five agents.
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- Genre: TV Action & Adventure
- Number of Discs: 4
- Number of Tracks: 0
- Playback Duration: 630
- Number of Movies: 0
What did Vera do for the Fed Five?
Vera helps coordinate agents from different offices, setting the men on the path toward working together. But when the group’s work is recognized, she is left out of the credit. The episode makes that exclusion part of the story rather than quietly adding her to the roster.
Executive producer Gina Lucita Monreal told TV Insider that involving Vera suited a character “always reaching for something more,” and that inter-office communication made her participation a natural fit. She described the credit being taken from Vera as a sign of the times and a source of motivation for the character. Monreal and North’s March 17, 2026 interview also discusses the scene and its place in Vera’s story.
Franks’ reaction is a first step, not an instant change
The episode also uses Vera’s treatment to show where Franks draws a line. North said the series wanted to stay true to the period and that change for Franks would be gradual. The head slap Vera gives him was added late in the writing process, according to North and Monreal in the same interview.
How did Gibbs and Pride first meet?
“Feelin’ Alright?” depicts an early encounter in 1981 New Orleans, beginning with a bar incident and leading into undercover work. Gibbs and Pride are tense with one another at first; the episode shows the meeting that starts the path toward the trust viewers know from their later relationship. Austin Stowell, who plays Pride, discussed the episode’s advice and relationship context in a separate TV Insider interview. The episode coverage describes the early tension and undercover operation, while Stowell’s interview offers his perspective on Pride.
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Rank #3
- SEASON 23: Includes all episodes from the twenty-third season of NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
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Which NCIS episodes introduce the Fed Five?
“Crescent City,” the two-part story in NCIS Season 11, is the earlier on-screen introduction to the Fed Five’s history. “Feelin’ Alright?” looks further back at their formation. It is not the later Privileged Killer case: the Origins story takes place before that case in the timeline.
The episode also references Gibbs’s Leland Spears undercover identity, previously seen in Season 12’s “Blast From the Past.” North, who wrote that earlier episode, described the reference as part of the continuity details. The callback does not, on its own, signal a broader change to the established canon. TV Insider’s episode interview covers both the Spears reference and the story’s place before the Privileged Killer case.
Quick Recap
Best Value
- NCIS NAVAL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE SERVICE: Dive into the thrilling world of one of television's most popular crime dramas.
- ACTION-PACKED STORYLINES: Follows a team of special agents solving crimes connected to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
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Rank #4
- NCIS
- Season One
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