‘FBI’: Should New Character Be Love Interest for Maggie? (POLL)

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Did FBI just introduce a new love interest for Maggie (Missy Peregrym)? It certainly feels like that’s a strong possibility.

The Season 7 Episode 12 case saw Maggie connect with a dispatcher who reached out after a young girl called looking for her; the agent had chased after her and her kidnapper in the team’s attempt to take down a trafficking ring. The episode was then spent trying to rescue her (fortunately, there was a semi-happy ending, though the girl’s sister was killed). During the investigation, the dispatcher, Joel, called Maggie at one point for an update, and Scola (John Boyd), who heard on speaker as he offered to help, commented on it. “Friend of yours?” he asked. That was the first sign that this might not just be colleagues working together on a case.

Then, at the end of the episode, as Maggie waited at the hospital for the girl to wake after they’d found her, she overheard someone asking for her. She recognized his voice: It was Joel, played by Bill Barrett. She was surprised to see him. “I was — well, I wanted an update on Annalise. My job was done, once you found her, so I never got to know,” he explained. Maggie told him she’d be okay and that her sister didn’t make it, something she had yet to tell Annalise. “That’s definitely the hardest part of my job,” she admitted. Joel noted that it “sounds like you’re in for quite a night. … You know what makes hospital coffee taste better?” “Powdered sugar?” she asked. “Definitely that, and someone else is paying,” Joel offered. “Come on, I’m buying.” She agreed and joined him.

It definitely feels like we could see or at least hear about Joel again. Plus, there’s a tease from Peregrym to TV Insider ahead of the season in September about potential romance for her character: “She’s made her job her priority after her husband died [before the show’s storyline began], but having Ella [her late friend’s daughter she briefly took in] has opened her heart up again…so we’ll see.”

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But should Joel be a new love interest for Maggie? She hasn’t been too lucky in love (remember Josh Segarra‘s Nestor?), and the show has never leaned too heavily into romance, with agents’ relationships tending to only come up when there’s a connection to a case. Just look at the fact that Isobel (Alana De La Garza) didn’t drop the shocking news that she’d gotten married until months after the fact! But with the show now in its seventh season (and renewed through its ninth), maybe it’s time. What do you think? Let us know in the poll and comments section below.

FBI, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS