‘FBI’ Boss on What’s Next for Maggie & OA After That Heartbreaking Episode

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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FBI Season 4, Episode 18 “Fear Nothing.”]

The promo may have made the latest FBI episode look intense, but even it couldn’t prepare us for what happened as the agents tracked down terrorists with sarin gas. In Missy Peregrym’s last episode of the season as she goes on maternity leave — last time, Maggie Bell went undercover — she and Zeeko Zaki (who plays her partner Omar Adom “OA” Zidan) deliver what may be their best performances of the series.

OA may have been the one who fully understood, at first, just how deadly the chemical weapon is, but it’s Maggie who comes into direct contact with it, sealed in a lab after a canister falls and the gas is released. That leads to perhaps the most emotional scene of the series, as Maggie begs OA to get her out of there and he fights to do just that. He has to find a way to break the glass and get her out to fresh air before it’s too late — and before he can give her (and himself) the antidote. (It’s ineffective if used before exposure.)

The episode ends with Maggie in the hospital, with a reasonable chance she’ll make a full recovery and OA at her bedside. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but the doctor said you just need to get some rest and then you can come back to work because I need you to come back to work,” he tells her. “Because you’re not checking out on me. I’m not gonna allow it. Do you understand me? I’m here, and I’m going to be here for you, OK? Because I need you. I need you. I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to do this without you.” When she moves a bit, that’s when he knows, “it’s gonna be OK.”

Showrunner Rick Eid takes us inside the episode and teases what’s ahead for Maggie, OA, and the team, as well as the season finale.

How’d you come up with this to explain Missy’s absence, especially considering how you handled her maternity leave last time?

Rick Eid: We knew she was considering beginning her maternity leave around Episode 17, 18, or 19 in general, and we wanted to make her departure feel like a finale, make it a big event, and one of the writers, Joe Halpin, had this great idea, “What if sarin gas, an illegal chemical weapon, somehow resurfaced?” and just after talking about it, we thought it married well with an OA-Maggie story: It was about OA’s biggest fear and Maggie finds herself in harm’s way and OA’s gotta overcome his biggest fear to save his partner. We just started talking about it and thought it would be a good way to send her off.

David Russell/CBS

Talk about crafting the Maggie and OA scenes in the lab, then the hospital. They were spectacular.

They were both amazing, and the director, Jon Cassar, did a great job, so I’m glad you like it. Throughout the whole episode, we just wanted to reinforce the idea, especially since Maggie was leaving, that these two really care about each other and they have a real relationship that exists beyond just 26 Fed, so I think towards the end, when she’s in the lab and trapped, we just wanted to see how important it was to OA to save her and the lengths he would go to and that he would ultimately risk his own life to do this. In the hospital scenes, hopefully it just supports this idea of family in the show and in 26 Fed and our main characters are there supporting her and then OA has his moment with her alone, and you just get to see how special their relationship and partnership really is.

This is Missy’s last episode of the season, but how much are we going to hear about Maggie’s recovery?

We’ll touch on it from time to time, through OA. We won’t see her again until she actually returns to the show, but we’ll find out she’s doing fine and she’s expected to recover and she’s expected to return.

How might this affect the Maggie we see when she returns?

It’ll be generally the same Maggie, but an experience like this changes someone, so I think from time to time, you’ll see differences in her personality, in the way she approaches the job, the way she probably approaches OA. Any traumatic event has consequences and changes someone.

David Russell/CBS

How is OA going to be affected moving forward? He’s without his partner for a bit and that comes after he almost lost her for good.

He’ll move on, but you’ll see some of the psychological and emotional consequences of what he went through in Episode 20. That’ll be front and center in episodes, seeing the impact of some of the things he’s been through coming to light in a current case. He’ll continue on with another partner, temporarily.

How is the rest of the team going to be affected? They almost lost her, too, but then there’s also probably concern for OA…

Again, you’ll see that in Episode 20. OA’s going through this emotional journey in this episode, and everyone’s really concerned about him. It’s because of what he endured with Maggie in this episode. You’ll see the team rally around each other.

David Russell/CBS

Was it a conscious decision to tackle loss and the possibility of it this season? Rina’s death and Jubal‘s (Jeremy Sisto) grief, Isobel (Alana De La Garza) grieving Most Wanted‘s Jess (Julian McMahon left the series), now this…

We always talk about a theme for the season, but it wasn’t loss. Some of that just happened. Somebody pitches you a great idea that involves loss, and you’re like, “Yeah, that sounds good, let’s do that.” And in a good way, it’s tragic and sad and all that, of course, but we always like to reinforce how dangerous the job is and how heroic some of these people are, and so when the bullets are live and they actually can hit people that are on the show, it reinforces that.

What’s coming up in the episodes leading up to and in the finale?

That OA episode that I talked about, that’s really an emotional, psychological episode for him we’re really excited about. And the finale is a pretty powerful episode as well. It involves Jubal and his son and it’s really intense, really emotional, really suspenseful.

What can you say about how the season ends? Is there a major, major cliffhanger?

No, not a major, major cliffhanger, but it’s majorly, majorly emotional.

Related

'FBI: Most Wanted': Dylan McDermott on How Remy's Loss 'Looms Large' for Him

Is drug lord Antonio Vargas (David Zayas) going to be an onscreen threat against this season?

He is not. And hopefully not an offscreen either.

That was my next question, because who knows what he could be doing behind the scenes. Is that something to consider?

I don’t think so, not during this season. Maybe next season, we could revisit that, but I think Vargas is just sitting in a prison cell somewhere right now, in my head.

FBI, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS