Spoilers ahead for Episode 6 of FBI Season 7, called "Perfect," which willl be available streaming with a Paramount+ subscription.
FBI returned from a week off in the 2024 TV schedule with an episode that was somehow even darker than usual, with a serial killer whose method of murder was "involuntary hysterectomy" of victims... a.k.a. cutting out a woman's uterus while she was still alive. Throw in a creepy doctor, and there was a lot going on in "Perfect" that prompted Maggie to make the devastating decision that Ella should move in with her uncle's family. That said, a bad guy was also introduced in the episode as the first man she'd ever arrested and was still obsessed with her, and I'm officially curious for the 2025 TV schedule.
The team first decided to investigate men who were known for stabbing women but hadn't yet been busted for killing anybody, when led them to Ray Distefano, described as a "serial slasher." Recognizing him, Maggie exposited that he disfigured ten women before he was captured and convicted of aggravated assault twelve years earlier. He was released a month before the victims of the new serial killer started being taken.
Maggie and OA busted through his door, but instead of find Distefano waiting for them, they discovered dozens of photos of both Maggie and Ella that had been taken from afar, clearly without their knowledge. He'd been watching them. OA clocked that there was a lot more to the story than that Maggie had just busted him, and she shared a bit more:
He was my first arrest. We got a tip that he was stalking a new victim, and so we intercepted him outside of her house one night, and he ran. I chased him onto a train. You know, I didn't have backup, got dicey, but I took him down. Anyway, his obsession with his victims got turned onto me. He was writing me letters from prison for years.
It wasn't until the partners got Distefano in the interrogation room that OA realized that she had really undersold what had happened between them when she said that things "got dicey." The serial slasher taunted her even as OA tried to command his attention, then proved that watching Maggie and Ella didn't mean that he knew everything about them. Commenting that OA's not Maggie's "baby daddy," he wanted to know who left her alone with Ella.
He then proceeded to give himself a very gross version of an alibi by pointing out that when he cut women, he wanted the cuts to be seen, not be hidden on dead bodies. He said:
You don't actually think I did this, do you? All these girls, their cuts are hidden by their nice, little dresses.... Face, that's best. Chest. Hands. I just want to be remembered. You never forgot me, Maggie. Because of that nice little reminder I gave you.
She went on to shoot back that "the scar is gone," which Distefano claimed wasn't possible because he "marked [her] deep." She insisted that it healed, but didn't indulge him when he asked to see it. Then he spat in her face when she repeated that the mark was gone, and I'm about 50/50 on whether or not I believe her. He obviously didn't cut her on her hands or her face, or else he wouldn't have demanded that she "show" him. Could he have slashed her chest?
Maggie's wardrobe as an FBI doesn't generally involve any plunging necklines, so it's possible that she still has a scar and FBI introduced Distefano here to revisit him as Maggie's nemesis later on. Or maybe FBI just introduced him as a one-off bad guy to plant some seeds of doubt in Maggie's mind about keeping Ella and the agent really is 100% healed.
Whatever the full story is, I'd be very interested in seeing it continued in a future episode. FBI generally isn't serialized to follow plots from week to week, although Tiff's obsession with getting justice for Hobbs lasted throughout the full sixth season. I do think it's a safe bet that FBI will at least continue exploring Maggie's journey as a mom after she decided that Ella should go stay with her uncle. It was a devastating decision that more than earned them a night of ice cream for dinner, and surely not the end of the emotional story.
Keep tuning in to CBS on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET for new episodes of FBI, ahead of FBI: International at 9 p.m. ET and FBI: Most Wanted at 10 p.m. ET. The current seasons of all three shows can be found streaming on Paramount+, and are set to return in the new year on Monday, January 27 following the upcoming fall finales.
