The FBI team endured a stunning loss this week.
Still reeling from Rina having been shot, Agent Jubal threw himself into the case of an abducted coed. But a shocking turn would change him forever as the episode lived up to the title of Grief.
Jubal has a terrible loss
On a college campus, Angela Mullins (Claire McGrath) was talking on the phone only to hear someone behind her before a man hit her with a stun gun to drag her off.
Jubal was concerned Rina’s stuff appeared to be missing from her hospital room. Administrator Susan Blanchard (Mellini Kantayya) dropped the bomb that Rina’s parents had decided to turn off her life support.
Jubal was stunned he never got a chance to say goodbye but was interrupted by a phone call.
Jubal tried to be all business as he talked about the abduction before Isobel announced Rina’s death to everyone. Jubal insisted he was fine as the team headed to the college.
A witness reported seeing a man put Angela into a car and had thought she was simply drunk. Angela’s mother Valerie (Megan Sikora) admitted she and Angela had a fight about her seeing an older man and had been calling to say it was over. Scola found a gold bracelet among Angela’s items.
Professor Alex Bradshaw (Jonathan Sale) admitted he and Angela were seeing each other and he was the one who ended it after seeing Angela talking to another man. He was able to give them the license plate number.
With Bradshaw’s alibi checking out, the plate came up for a car on the move in Long Island. Tiffany and Scola were soon following to see a woman run out of the car only to be hit by an oncoming truck. The car’s driver took off as Wallace tried in vain to save the woman.
A serial killer on the loose?
The car’s real owner was in the hospital with the woman identified as Cassidy Drabeck whose father Phillip reported her missing four months earlier. There seemed to be no connection between Cassidy and Angela.
The medical examiner reported Cassidy had been abused, chained, and would have died of sepsis brought about by her ordeal.
Phillip (Graham Winton) was obviously rocked by this, insisting Cassidy would never have run off on him but couldn’t tell more about what happened. It was clear Jubal was thinking of Rina hearing Phillip talk of never saying goodbye.
Beth Page (Tena Intriago), a drama class teacher, talked of Cassidy as a good student before OA and Maggie found a link of flyers for Angela’s help hotline at Cassidy’s theater.
Phillip talked of possibly “letting go,” but Jubal insisted he hold onto the feeling until they caught the man responsible. Phillip reported that Cassidy told him a stranger had been stalking her with a video of the production showing him in the background.
He came up as Doyle Buckler (Ari Binder), already wanted for some assaults, and was seen on the video whispering to Beth. Wallace and Scola hit Beth’s apartment to find her gone.
Jubal gets a personal confrontation
The team figured Beth used the theater to scope out girls for Buckler but couldn’t figure out why. Another girl matched the description of Angela and Cassidy, Darcy Edmonds (Claire Hampsey), with Jubal interrupted by a phone call.
Jubal led Rina’s mother, Nicole (Kathleen Garrett), into her office, with Nicole saying Rina would have wanted a quick end rather than be kept alive by machines. She was tearful as she noted how Rina took the job to be near Jubal, which he hadn’t known. The woman was on the verge of tears as she took a box of Rina’s items…except her FBI plaque.
Darcy told Maggie and OA that she had dated Buckler five years earlier with him charming at first only to discover he’d been stalking her for some time and continued after she broke up with him. The team deduced Buckler was getting over his “broken heart” by going after women like Darcy.
Jubal pressed Phillip for information, with him recognizing a fake social media account Buckler had used to trick Cassidy. They tracked the IP address to a trailer where Beth was trying to run. They also found a shipping container where Buckler had been holding the girls.
A tense showdown and Jubal’s heartbreak
Beth claimed Doyle “loved” Cassidy and Angela and refused to give him up, even when told she’d be liable for Cassidy’s death. Jubal was intent on pushing Phillip, with Isobel warning him not to press the guy too hard.
Jubal went to Phillip to ask about Beth, and things got heated with a priest friend stating that the step to healing “begins with forgiveness, not vengeance,” which sent Jubal off.
OA and Maggie got Beth to see she didn’t fit the profile for the type of women Buckler loved and that Doyle only cared about Darcy, not her. She finally confessed that Doyle was intent on ensuring no one would take Angela from him.
They figured Doyle was at a nearby park and gave chase in a shootout. OA arrested Doyle, who refused to give up Angela’s whereabouts but thankfully, the team found her in the trunk of his car.
Phillip was not happy to hear there was always a chance that, in a year, Buckler might find a way to escape justice by being found not guilty, and he couldn’t trust the system.
Wallace and Scola headed to the hospital to take Buckler into custody, only for Phillip to show up, grabbing a random woman hostage with a gun and demanding Buckler.
With a pack of agents outside, Jubal confronted Phillip, getting him to see he was terrifying an innocent woman and that all this would tarnish Cassidy’s legacy. Jubal used his own pain over Rina to admit he wanted revenge but that it wouldn’t ease his pain but add to it, and Phillip needed to make Cassidy proud. The man agreed, letting the hostage go and turning himself in.
The final scene had Jubal stepping into Rina’s empty office, holding her desk placard and crying in the darkness.
It was a shocking hour with the loss of Rina, which will clearly be affecting Jubal for a long time to come.
FBI Season 4 returns with new episodes Tuesday, February 1 at 8/7c on CBS.