Tonight on CBS NCIS: ORIGINS returns with an all-new Tuesday, November 18, 2025, season 2 episode 6 called, “Happy Birthday”,” and we have your weekly NCIS: ORIGINS recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS: ORIGINS season 2 episode 6 called “Happy Birthday,” as per the CBS synopsis, “When an anonymous tip leads to the discovery of a young Marine’s body at a chilling crime scene, Randy believes it could be connected to a previous case where a coin was left in the victim’s throat. Also, Franks tries to track down priceless packages meant for his brother, Mason.”
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In tonight’s NCIS: ORIGINS, it was Randy’s birthday. He loves his birthdays. He was so used to celebrating it in a big way with his family that he thought nothing bad could ever happen on it.
Only this year his team caught a murder case on his birthday. They were called out to the roach house. They didn’t find drugs. They instead found the body of Marine Sergeant Henry Aldrin. His death appeared to be ritualistic. His killer wanted it to look like a Santeria ritual and real ritual would never dirty its hands in human sacrifice. They also wouldn’t use someone as broken as Henry.
Henry injured his back on the job. He was given painkillers to help with it. He became addicted to the drugs. He even moved on to more serious drugs like heroin.
He probably went to the roach house looking to get high when someone turned him into a message. NIS was only at the scene because someone called it in and that led them to believe that someone cared about what happened to Henry. It was confirmed when that person later showed up at the office. His name was Howard. He didn’t know Henry personally.
He broke into the house because he heard it was empty. He figured he could steal the copper wiring. He knew he could get money for it and it would fund his “habit”.
He ended up seeing the blood before he found the wiring. He found Henry’s body. He called it because he thought that could easily have been him. He could have been killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Franks got where he was coming from. He once had a habit of his own to feed. Franks promised to take this case seriously and then he lost his temper.
Franks had packed up his brother’s things in Texas. He shipped the big stuff to LA believing he could drive it up to the farm himself, but his packages never arrived. The post office lost them.
Franks got upset with them. He smashed Randy’s computer by accident. Randy was just about to break the case. Their victim was found with a coin in his mouth. It reminded Randy of another case and he was looking through his computer happily named Martha Stewart when the keyword search wasn’t working. He said it out loud. And Franks threw it to the floor.
Franks wasn’t the apology type. He didn’t apologize for potentially destroying Martha. He also didn’t apologize for sending Randy to break the news of Henry’s death to his family on his birthday. He said Randy was better with people. Randy was good with people. It’s because he had to be. His mother was a saleswoman. Randy often had to help her out because discounted her like they did him. Randy became good with people hoping to be seen and now he buried whatever he was feeling to put others first. This included Franks.
Herm came back on his day off to take a look at Martha. Martha was dead. There was no saving her. All that time that Randy put in to upload files onto the computer was no pointless.
He also didn’t get the clue he was looking for. He tried looking through the regular files hoping to still come through for Franks and it was a no go. He couldn’t find anything. He had to cancel his birthday celebration at home. He missed out on the cake they got him at the office. He later stayed there all night looking for that file that he could easily have found on his computer with enough time.
Randy kept trying to fix what someone else broke until eventually he snapped. He snapped because Franks said he was glad he broke the computer. He said that Randy was using it to hide and he stopped being a people’s person. He didn’t know that Randy had to be that person as a kid. He had to help his mother with work.
They still didn’t make enough for presents. His mother tried selling off their things just so she wouldn’t disappoint him. Randy came to feel like a burden and he didn’t want to be that way as an adult either. He wanted to get things done.
Franks should’ve understood that.
They spent so much time hunting down leads on the coin in throat thing. It was all pointless once Wheeler moved the file. Herm knew about it and Mary Jo told him to keep his mouth shut because she thought he was talking about Wheeler being into men. Something that would’ve cost him his job in the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Era.
Mary Jo eventually learned that Herm didn’t know what she was talking about. She also helped. Wheeler accidentally deleted several files and so he took the paper files and put it in Randy’s to-do bin so that he uploads them again.
Randy just didn’t know he had a to-do bin. Gail created one for him. She told Wheeler about it and forgot to tell Randy about it. Randy finally got it. He learned that there was a case in which a woman was found with a silver dollar down her throat. Her name was Lillian Garrett.
Her killer was behind bars for another charge and he refused to confess until he spoke with Lala. Lala can get anyone talking. Which was what Henry’s attacker wanted. Henry wasn’t murdered. He OD’d. Howard then found him and slit his throat in the same way as his half sister, Lillian.
He wanted them to finally get justice for his sister. Technically, all he did was interfere with the body. Franks was going to put in a good word for him and he never did get his packages. Franks did on the other hand helped Herm with setting up Martha II for Randy. Randy went home early to go celebrate his birthday. He was able to be joyous again.
And Lala meanwhile was being followed by Flaca’s people who still wanted her to bring down Luna.
THE END!
