The end of FBI: Most Wanted Season 2 is fast-approaching, and showrunner David Hudgins has already made it clear that the season finale on May 25 is not going to be an episode that viewers will want to miss. Called "Chattaboogie," the Season 2 finale will take Jess and the team down to Tennessee in the search for an undercover DEA agent who may have turned dirty, while Sarah moves in with Jess and Tali. According to Hudgins, the episode will deliver a "hell of a story," and that's certainly not all he had to preview about it.
David Hudgins spoke with CinemaBlend about the Season 2 finale of FBI: Most Wanted, and he had this to say to prepare fans for what's in store in the episode:
For the finale, I would say it's a hell of a story. That would be I think, incredibly satisfying, on its own. And stay tuned for the last five minutes because the cliffhanger that's coming, I think is going to reveal a lot about our main character.
"A hell of a story" all on its own is promising about the Season 2 finale, but a reveal about Jess along with a cliffhanger? I think it's safe to say that viewers can be very relieved going into "Chattaboogie" knowing that FBI: Most Wanted has already been renewed for Season 3 and there's no need to worry that the show will end for good on the cliffhanger. In fact, FBI: Most Wanted (along with parent series FBI) was renewed for the 2021-2022 TV season all the way back in March. David Hudgins weighed in on the perks of that early renewal:
Number one, the early renewal gave us the luxury in the writers room to start thinking about stories for next year. Not only our cases of the week, which we're constantly on the hunt for, but also to start thinking about personal stories for the characters. So that was one of the great things about getting an early renewal.
FBI: Most Wanted scoring a renewal for Season 3 while there were still several episodes left of Season 2 means that the show is getting an early jump on what happens after the show delivers its "hell of a story" in the May 25 finale, and it definitely gives fans some breathing room in the knowledge that the show will definitely be back. As to whether everybody who goes into the Season 2 finale will be back following the cliffhanger... well, we can only wait until "Chattaboogie" to find out. David Hudgins continued on the subject of the early renewal ahead of the Season 2 finale:
I'm not sure that it really did [tie in], because we had in the writers room a fairly good idea, a target, of how we saw the season ending. The relationship that was building between Jess and Sarah was a large part of that. So it didn't really affect it that much. From the beginning, which when I say from the beginning is when we started thinking about the last movement of the season. Look, I come from network television, and I've always loved a good old-fashioned cliffhanger. So we wanted to do a good old-fashioned cliffhanger, and that's what we've got at the end of our finale. And I think people are gonna love it, the last five minutes.
The relationship between Jess and Sarah, which really expanded on what FBI: Most Wanted had shown of Jess' character in the first season, is taking a big step forward with Sarah moving in. Although the episode description for "Chattaboogie" reveals that she'll ultimately wonder if she made a mistake in moving in with him and Tali so relatively soon, the relationship has clearly been good for Jess so far. As for the case of the week, the FBI team will be tasked with an investigation with more of a complication than usual thanks to the fact that the target is another federal agent.
Jess and the other FBI agents are on the trail of an undercover DEA agent who seemingly turned dirty within a drug ring operation, all happening down in Tennessee. When I asked David Hudgins if this case will hit close to home for the team as they investigate a fellow federal agent or if they're conditioned by this point, the showrunner explained:
I don't think they're conditioned into investigating at all. In fact, I think it's an anomaly, and that's what makes the episode so different and so exciting, the idea that you would actually have one of your own go rogue, and what are you going to do about it? So what the episode does is it puts the team in this unique position of A) having to chase a fellow law enforcement officer who's gone rogue, and B) also having to deal with multiple agendas, both from above, and with the people that they're going down to investigate because this guy is part of an existing investigation that was already going on. Now we have to go hunt him down without compromising that investigation. It's sort of like the team has to do this case with one hand behind its back in a way because of all the competing interests.
As if the prospect of these FBI agents having to chase down a potentially dirty DEA agent wasn't already complicated enough for Jess and Co., there will be more factors that they'll have to deal with during the course of this FBI: Most Wanted case that won't make their jobs any easier. According to David Hudgins:
And then they're also literally thrown into unfamiliar territory down in the south where these people are very clannish, they stick together, you never know if anybody's telling you the truth or not. So it's just a really challenging case for them. And because it's a finale, you know, we went big, there's lots of action. There's lots of Most Wanted-style drama in the episode, and I really like it.
The unfamiliar territory of the area in Tennessee where the FBI: Most Wanted team will wind up in the finale clearly is going to make this case even more challenging, but what would a season finale be without some extra challenges, extra action, and a big cliffhanger to cap things off? All things considered, FBI: Most Wanted is poised to deliver a finale that will hopefully keep fans hooked during hiatus while waiting for Season 3.
The Season 2 finale of FBI: Most Wanted airs on Tuesday, May 25 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, following the Season 3 finale of FBI at 9 p.m. ET. The FBI universe (which is already part of the expansive Dick Wolf universe) is getting even bigger in the 2021-2022 TV season, thanks to new spinoff FBI: International joining FBI and Most Wanted on Tuesdays nights after launching via a crossover.
For some of what you can watch during the wait for the shows to return in the fall, be sure to check out our 2021 summer premiere schedule, and stay tuned for more on season finale season.
