FBI is about to lose a main cast member — temporarily — ahead of the highly anticipated season 8 finale.
CBS released a synopsis for the Monday, May 11, episode of the show, which read, “Following the assassination of a major corporate executive, the team races to find leaders of a dormant terrorist organization that has reemerged.” The sneak peek went on to tease how Zeeko Zaki’s fan-favorite character, OA, is “temporarily reassigned after refusing to follow orders but is paired up with a familiar face.”
Based on the first look images, Agent Zara Ushruf (Pardis Saremi) is the familiar face. The duo originally met in episode 17 while on a case before they went out to dinner. OA was then noticeably absent from the Monday, April 20, episode of FBI and is expected to go missing again in the penultimate episode.
It is still unclear how long OA could be separate from the FBI. This comes after the procedural faced another surprise shakeup when a March episode of the hit show had Maggie’s (Missy Peregrym) first arrest — serial slasher Ray DiStefano (Matthew Rauch) — kidnap her sister, Erin (Adrienne Rose Bengtsson). Maggie spent the episode trying to save her sibling, only to find her dead in the back of DiStefano’s truck.
While Peregrym, 43, was missing from one episode, she has denied plans to leave the show entirely.
“I’ll be honest. I’m on a procedural show, and I wonder what impact this is possibly making? And sometimes I get freaked out because I think we’re just highlighting some of the horrors of humanity every week,” Peregrym told Deadline. “And what is this? What are we doing this for? What am I investing a lot of my life in to do this for?”
The actress expressed gratitude for the show’s decision to address such a topic, adding, “I think it’s really important what we’re doing, because we’re highlighting how to move forward.”
“Everybody experiences loss. Everybody goes through the depths of emotions in life,” she continued. “You have an opportunity to show connection, relationship, intimacy and growth. And this is exactly why I do what I do. I hope this makes people feel seen and that they want to keep going after such a horrific experience, and that they don’t give up.”
At the time, Peregrym remained hopeful about the plans for the show.
“To go so far. I was like, ‘What are we doing after this?’ You know, I’ve been playing the same character for eight years, and we’re going so far,” she noted. “What’s the plan? How are we going to move through the next steps of getting back on your feet and being able to be in the world again? We’re not a drama where we sit around in our underwear and chat on the couch. We’ve got to get back to work.”
She concluded, “So at what point are we going to address the reality of this scenario, and we are, we are doing it in the best way that we can with our show, like the way we do it on a procedural. But you know, as much as it scared me, I was terrified to go into that space at the end. I’m finding it really interesting to play my character now and finding these beats of when I can insert this stuff and when to work. And it’s just a challenge. It just feels like we’re doing a new show again. Do you know what I mean? And maybe that’s a gift.”
FBI airs on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
