Spoilers ahead for the fall finale of FBI Season 7, called "Riptide" and set for streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
The final episode of FBI in the 2024 TV schedule has aired on CBS, and OA needed more help than he knew when faced with the betrayal of his old friend Clay. The character, played by Chicago Med alum Guy Lockard, showed his true colors in the fall finale, and his attempt to escape with a whole lot of gold ended abruptly when OA shot and killed him. Zeeko Zaki spoke with CinemaBlend about what comes next for his character as the 2025 TV schedule approaches, as well as the challenges of filming for the second half of Season 7.
OA has gotten into fisticuffs plenty of times over the years of FBI, but rarely have the personal stakes been so high for him as he came to blows with an opponent. Despite having his suspicions – or, as Zaki put it, his "spider senses tingling" – the agent clearly wanted to believe that the man who had saved his life all those years ago wasn't ready to betray him. It was an ugly fight that ended with OA shooting Clay, but a great performance by both Zaki and Lockard.
Since there was more emotion than usual for a fight on FBI, I asked the longtime series regular: was the action choreographed differently this time around? He explained:
I feel like the fight wasn't necessarily choreographed differently, but it is a different motivation. I'm not necessarily in this fight to hurt him or kill him. I'm in the fight to maybe knock some sense into him and to shake him out of this crazy path he's on. So it was definitely different in that sense. But again, when push comes to shove and lives are on the line and the case is on the line and things like that, we know what side OA stands on, and it's nice to see that if the gloves have to come off, even with a personal friend, they can.
It was clear that OA hadn't wanted to kill Clay even after he pulled the trigger, scrambling over to his friend to see if he was still breathing. Later, though, he confirmed to Maggie that he knew that he did what he had to do. All in all, it was just a rough episode for Zeeko Zaki's character, and ended with another friend dead. The actor elaborated:
It's tough. It was definitely an unbelievable sort of moment. Again, I think it shows that while OA succeeds at most of the things he tries, not being able to talk his friend down is definitely going to affect him, and is definitely showing that we're all human at the end of the day, and not everything works out the way that we want it to.
Really, not much of anything from "Riptide" worked out the way that OA wanted it to, and I almost wish that there was one last scene in the fall finale with the character opening up a little more to Maggie or his girlfriend. Gemma seems to be around to stay despite a rough beginning, after all!
After OA shared with Maggie earlier in the episode about how Clay had broken protocol back in their army days to bring in the cavalry and save his life following weeks of captivity, it was easy to understand his conflict. FBI is of course a procedural, but will this case stick with OA whether or not fans see it on screen each week? Zeeko Zaki weighed in:
It has to. I think his military background and his background in the Bureau have made him very good at compartmentalizing these things. So it's nice to have the opportunity to play that, but I'm excited to see where the writers go with it and how we do play that in the future.
"The future" of FBI is still a ways off for fans, as CBS' hit drama won't return in the new year until January 27. That said, the cast has been hard at work beyond the fall finale, which was the eighth of Season 7. I asked Zeeko Zaki how far ahead they've filmed for the 2025 return so far, and he said:
We are filming Episode 12 at the moment, and we have Episode 13's script, but after that, no idea.
Assuming that FBI goes to 22 episodes in Season 7 as the usual count for seasons not affected by COVID-19 complications or the WGA writers strike, then Zaki and the rest of the cast were just beyond the halfway point when we spoke ahead of the fall finale. Of course, filming at the end of one year and beginning of the next has a different set of challenges than the fall or spring. Zaki explained the changes:
Mostly it's the cold. [laughs] It's definitely intense, and it does hurt, but it really brings out another layer to the characters. For me, it just makes you really, really present when you're in the cold and you're kind of suffering through that. So I love when we get to shoot in the cold, because I know the work is going to have that extra edge on it, and it really plays on screen.
Zeeko Zaki put a positive spin off filming outdoors in the cold of New York City in December (so far) and into the early months of the new year! Fans just have a bit of a wait until the winter episodes of Season 7 hit the airwaves on CBS. Unsurprisingly, FBI was not one of CBS' shows with a Christmas episode.
During the hiatus ahead of the return of FBI (as well as FBI: International with new cast member Jay Hayden and FBI: Most Wanted) on January 27, you can always revisit earlier episodes streaming via Paramount+.
