When it comes to killer openings to episodes of CBS' FBI shows, FBI: Most Wanted can always be counted on to deliver something truly gruesome to set up the chase for the fugitive of the week. The show is going strong in the 2025 TV schedule when it comes to creative new ways of kicking off brutal new cases, and I'm still thinking about an incident with a meat tenderizer days after the episode aired. Fortunately, I'd spoken with director Milena Govich about the installment, called "Do You Realize?" and airing on February 11, and she explained what made it look so good.
Milena Govich has directed on multiple series throughout the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe and even briefly starred on Law & Order, but "Do You Realize?" presented some unique challenges. I spoke with her after watching the episode's opener with the killer of the week heating up a meat tenderizer and then branding one of his victims before shooting him to death. If you missed the sequence or just want to rewatch it, you can find it streaming with a Paramount+ subscription. In fact, you may just need to revisit those first couple of minutes after reading what the director shared!
On the subject of the meat tenderizer sequence, Milena Govich explained that it was "a combination of special effects, which are practical onset things that are happening, and visual effects." She went on to shed some extra behind-the-scenes light to CinemaBlend:
We did heat up the meat tenderizer on an actual flame, so when you see that at the beginning, that actually fire. That's happening, but then it comes away from frame. We follow it, and if you notice in this opening shot, the tenderizer goes out of frame for just a moment, and we have the props person holding a cold one, and they switch it out off camera, so when it comes back up, it's an identical meat tenderizer, but it's not hot. [laughs] So when it comes and touches the other actor, it's all just acting, as far as the burning goes. But we're hopefully tricking the eye to believe that we're taking that tenderizer right off a real flame and putting it onto the actor.
I did in fact go back and rewatch the opener (more than once) after Govich's breakdown of how the FBI: Most Wanted team made it work with the switch happening just off camera, proving that the effects team goes above and beyond just as much as the stunt team that earned Emmy nominations. I noted to the director that I'd assumed there was a bigger cut in the episode to make the sequence happen, and she went on:
We did a little switcheroo! And then as far as the burns on the actor that's getting burned, we utilize some visual effects there. Just because our timeline is so constrained, our amazing makeup team, led by John Perkins, created an appliqué that's on his chest for the burn marks. We went ahead and put the appliqué on to start. There is some visual effects removing that appliqué, but it's there so that when the meat tenderizer goes on, it goes on at exactly the right place, and then when it comes off, the visual effects stop and now we see the burn. We call that a heal and reveal in the effects world.
If I'd had to guess where visual effects were used to create the burn marks, I would have had it backwards! FBI: Most Wanted made the most of TV magic to make the sequence that was so bad for the characters look so good for viewers from home. Interestingly, makeup department head John Perkins also came to Most Wanted with experience in the wider Dick Wolf world, with stints on Law & Order: SVU as well as Law & Order.
It remains to be seen what kind of gruesome openers are still in store for FBI: Most Wanted Season 6 on CBS, but it's a safe bet that those first few minutes of each episode aren't going to be the faint of heart. Then again, anybody who has watched FBI and then FBI: International on Tuesday nights ahead of Most Wanted at 10 p.m. ET surely has nerves of steel when it comes to TV crime.
While Most Wanted is arguably the most gruesome of the three with its late time slot, the crew of FBI and Fly Team of International aren't exactly called in for petty crimes!
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