‘FBI’: Shantel VanSanten Returning as Nina to Temporarily Replace Maggie

Meredith Jacobs April 21, 2022, 1:23 pm

John Boyd as Special Agent Stuart Scola and Shantel VanSanten as Nina Chase in FBI — David M. Russell/CBS

It may not be easy to see someone else working with the team in Special Agent Maggie Bell’s (Missy Peregrym) absence, but at least it’s a familiar face?

Beginning with the April 26 episode, Shantel VanSanten is coming back in a recurring capacity as Special Agent Nina Chase as FBI heads towards its Season 4 finale (May 24), TVLine reports. Special Agent Omar Adom “OA” Zidan (Zeeko Zaki) is the one down a partner, but the team does shuffle about and she’ll be working with the others — Stuart Scola (John Boyd) and Tiffany Wallace (Katherine Renee Turner) — as well.

David M. Russell/CBS

That should make things interesting for Scola, given their history (as fans learned when VanSanten first appeared in April 12’s “One Night Stand”). “I’ve changed,” Scola told Nina at the end of the episode. “Let’s have dinner.” She said no, but he insisted, “I just want to have dinner and talk, that’s it,” and she agreed. Now that she’s going to be around much more, could that dinner become more? Or might things get messy on cases? That’ll probably depend on whether or not Scola convinces Nina he has changed.

In the latest episode, “Fear Nothing,” Maggie was exposed to sarin gas, and she’ll be out recovering to coincide with Peregrym’s maternity leave. She will, however, be back next season, as the actress promised in a video shared on Twitter the day after the episode aired.

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

“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,” showrunner Rick Eid explained to TV Insider.

As for her recovery, “we’ll touch on it from time to time, through OA,” he said. “We’ll find out she’s doing fine and she’s expected to recover and she’s expected to return.”