FBI: International Season 4 finishes its run in the 2024 TV schedule with the midseason finale on December 17, shortly after adding a new agent to the Fly Team in the form of Agent Tyler Booth, played by Station 19's Jay Hayden. With the actor expected to stick around for a while into the 2025 TV schedule (and his first episode available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription), I'm thinking back to what Hayden told me in our interview about the team member who wasn't too fond of Tyler... and why opposites could attract in the new year. Sign me up for more of Tyler and Smitty!
Full disclosure – I'm not taking Jay Hayden's words about his decision to come to FBI: International so soon after Station 19 to mean that a romance is in the works, since the FBI spinoff has avoided romantic sparks within the team since the days of Forrester and Kellett. But his comments certainly have me thinking about changing dynamics in 2025. After Hayden suggested that Smitty (Eva-Jane Willis) is "more of the angel on [Wes'] shoulder" while Tyler was more of "the devil," I noted – as a bit of an understatement – that Smitty did not seem to be Tyler's biggest fan. The actor laughed and responded:
She doesn't! She doesn't seem to be in love with him, that's for sure.
If Smitty thought Wes Mitchell was a headache when he first joined the Fly Team, she definitely wasn't prepared for Tyler Booth wasting no time in not only breaking the rules himself, but leaning on Wes to cross lines. While the Fly Team managed to close the case without starting an international incident in Jay Hayden's first episode, it could have gone sideways very easily, and the credits rolled without showing the reactions of the rest of the team to Wes welcoming Tyler to stick around.
I went on to ask Hayden who he thinks Tyler has the best connection with on the team other than Wes, their "baggage" – to quote Jesse Lee Soffer – aside, and was quite intrigued by his response:
I think there's a connection with Vo and him. There may not be, they might not have a lot of scenes together, but I think he appreciates what she does on the team very much. And then, to be honest, I don't know – it's like the opposites attract situation with him and Smitty there. Those waves are going to crash into each other. It's just a matter of when.
Tyler and Vo (Vinessa Vidotto) shared a quick moment of bonding early in his first episode, when they compared their heritages, but most of his scenes were with Jesse Lee Soffer as Wes. The most friction, however, came from Tyler and Smitty, and understandably so. He was around for a day at most, and was already suggesting that they infiltrate a country without alerting local authorities and effectively kidnap a man, which obviously was not what the Fly Team's Europol liaison works towards.
I suggested to Jay Hayden that – much with Wes after his first case in Budapest – Smitty looked like she had a headache after working with Tyler, and he responded:
It looks like she's like, 'I'm not done with you.' It's going to be a lot of fun.
All in all, while I'm expecting more of Wes and Tyler and I was intrigued by the moment of bonding between Vo and Tyler, the show seems poised to focus more on Wes with Vo and whatever their dynamic turns out to be as former mentor/mentee. It'd be interesting to see more of Tyler and Smitty. FBI: International is a show that's not afraid to try new things and reinvent itself; more than half of the original cast has been replaced by the halfway point of Season 4, and the series is still going strong.
I'm on board to see more of how Tyler and Smitty get used to working together in 2025. The fall finale of FBI: International airs on Tuesday, December 17 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS, between FBI with a possible betrayal for OA at 8 p.m. ET and FBI: Most Wanted at 10 p.m. ET. All three shows will be back in their usual time slots on Monday, January 27 in the new year.
