FBI hasn’t shied away from some heavy storylines in Season 4, even going so far as to tragically kill off a character. The show is moving ahead after Rina’s death, however, and the next episode will involve a case from Maggie’s past influencing her during an undercover op in the present. Missy Peregrym has weighed in on what to expect, and how that past operation can impact Maggie at this point.
Maggie was absent for part of FBI Season 2, even before it became one of the many shows to suspend production and cut the season short due to the pandemic. The real-life reason for Maggie’s absence was Missy Peregrym’s maternity leave, while the show established that Maggie was needed on an undercover operation (and brought in somebody from NBC to fill her shoes). According to the actress to TVLine, this will be the case that’s on Maggie’s mind:
When I came back from maternity leave, there was an episode where we discussed how I lost somebody who was my person undercover, an informant to me. That always weighed heavy on me, so I definitely care very much about this character. It’s a big weight on a person to make sure nothing happens to the people who help us in these investigations.
The person who will be weighing heavily on Maggie this time around is a single father with connections to a group of suspects in a string of bombings. According to Missy Peregrym, the man will be “very uncomfortable in this position” as a criminal informant but “wants to do the right thing.” For her part, Maggie will be undercover as a waitress at a bar, and fans shouldn’t expect her to be uneventfully serving drinks for an hour. Her work with the CI will involve her thinking back to the undercover op that went wrong for a friend between Seasons 2 and 3.
Maggie of course returned to her partner and her job as Agent Maggie Bell in the Season 3 premiere, and could boast of 16 arrests from the undercover case… except she wasn’t boasting, and it took OA the better part of the episode to find out what was bothering her. She confessed that even though they made 16 arrests, one person died before they closed the case, and it was at Maggie’s hand. She explained:
Her name was Anna. She was married to one of the targets. She had just turned 22. I’d spent a lot of time with her and I considered her a friend. The day of the arrest, she panicked. And she grabbed a knife and she ran towards one of the officers. I shot her. I didn’t have a choice.
That episode wasn’t the first or the last time that FBI made a point of the dangerous nature of undercover work, or forming bonds with people who are part of cases. Plus, with Maggie undercover again and presumably unable to rely on backup coming as quickly as she could under normal circumstances, it’s no wonder that she’ll be feeling the weight of what she went through the last time she was in a similar situation. All things considered, it sounds like a rough case for Maggie, but the emotionally intense episodes for Maggie are arguably some of the best of the series.
See how FBI revisits Maggie’s past with the next new episode on Tuesday, February 1 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, opening a night of action that continues with FBI: International at 9 p.m. and FBI: Most Wanted at 10 p.m. Most Wanted will go through some significant changes in the not-too-distant future when it comes to the cast, although all three FBI shows will go into a mini hiatus for a few weeks while primetime is dominated by the Olympics over on NBC. There are still some viewing options, however, and you can find them on our 2022 TV schedule.
