FBI said goodbye to Missy Peregrym as Agent Maggie Bell during a shocking episode of Season 4, but for a good reason: the leading lady was going on her maternity leave. She has already confirmed that she’ll be back at some point in Season 5, but not right away when the show returns in September. Now, Shantel VanSanten, who joined the cast as Agent Nina Chase to help fill the vacant slot after Maggie’s incident, has shared the “plan” for FBI bringing Maggie back.
Nina Chase was brought into the unit after Maggie was exposed to sarin gas as part of an investigation that hit close to home for OA. She survived, but would be out of commission and recovering for an unknown amount of time. Nina made sure that they weren’t an agent down with Maggie out (much like how FBI brought in Chicago P.D.’s Tracy Spiridakos to fill the vacancy the last time that Missy Peregrym went on maternity leave). Shantel VanSanten opened up to TVLine about the plan:
The plan was always to do these 10 episodes while [Missy] got to have her baby and recover, and then she’ll be back… I think the door is open, and I’m excited to see where that might lead.
Shantel VanSanten has appeared in four episodes of FBI that have aired so far, and presumably would have appeared in a fifth episode if CBS hadn’t pulled the Season 4 finale in light of the real-life tragedy of the Uvalde shooting. Whether or not the actress was counting that pulled finale as part of her count of ten episodes is unknown, but it appears that viewers will get to keep seeing Nina Chase in action for the first month or so of Season 5.
This fits with what Missy Peregrym had to say when she revealed that she would be returning to work in September, whereas the rest of the cast would begin filming much sooner. VanSanten couldn’t confirm whether or not she’d be back as Nina beyond the planned ten episodes, but the door remaining open is always a good thing. At the very least, hopefully it means that the team won’t be losing another one of their own after Rina’s death in Season 4.
VanSanten has kept busy on the small screen in addition to her work on FBI. Although her character on The Boys came to a tragic end, she has been part of the cast of For All Mankind in all three seasons so far. The show has already been renewed for a fourth season, and the showrunners previewed a pretty exciting finale on August 12. You can find that show streaming with an Apple TV+ subscription as an option to spend the remaining weeks of waiting for FBI to return.
FBI (as well as spinoffs FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International) will be back on CBS starting on Tuesday, September 20 starting at 8 p.m. ET in the 2022 TV premiere schedule. That’s going to be a very big week for the nine-show shared universe of Dick Wolf TV shows, as the three One Chicago series and the three Law & Orders will return as well.
