Sometimes, honoring the dead only leads to some new graves being made.
After handling a serial killer case leading to a family reunion for Isobel this week, the FBI team tangled with a possible hit on a Congressman.
This had Agent OA on a challenging assignment protecting a man he disliked from a killer who may have had a point. The episode titled Protective Details would prove to be a delicate mission.
Blood on the ice and a new deadly case for FBI
At a park, Congressman Curtiss Grange (Brett Cullen) was attending an interagency hockey game between DEA and ICE members. ICE agent Mike Mulder (Paul Chirico) wasn’t happy with being used for a campaign video for Grange.
Suddenly, sniper fire tore through the area, killing Mulder and wounding others as Grange ducked for cover. With Mulder the only fatality, it was assumed he was the main target.
Detective Jackson (Frank Rivers) introduced OA and Wallace to Grange, whose son Ethan (Roberto Morean) was shaken. Unfortunately, Grange immediately got things off on the wrong foot, first insulting OA’s background and then claiming he was the target of a “leftist assault.”
Wallace and OA were not fans of Grange’s rhetoric but focused on how the sniper had fired from a nearby building. They checked it out, and found a spent shell casing for a specifically made rifle.
A search with ATF records found a rifle made by Jim Weaver (Jeff Leaf). Maggie and Scola dropped by his shop with Weaver tried to play dumb, but a threat to run him in for modifying weapons had Weaver giving up his Rolodex.
One customer was Bradley Baker (Lee Aaron Rosen), a former Marine turned lawyer who had a beef with ICE for not doing enough on immigration. OA and Wallace headed to his clinic, where Baker escaped on a motorcycle. He left his phone and several weapons, including the sniper rifle, behind.
The agents tracked Baker to an empty warehouse, where Baker gave himself up. He denied being part of the shooting, despite his issues with ICE and demanded a lawyer.
Just as Wallace was saying the case was a slam dunk, OA revealed that Grange had just posted a fundraising video showing the shooting and blamed it on a “leftist” after ICE.
More importantly, the audio of the tape revealed the rifle used in the shooting wasn’t the same as Baker’s rifle, which meant he was innocent. The confirmation came with Jubal revealing an immigration judge had just been shot downtown.
A deadly wave begins
The murdered judge, Teresa Alvarez, had been taken out on the courthouse steps with witnesses seeing a man in a jacket leaving the scene. Her clerk, Vince (Mark Jacobson), was deeply shaken, revealing that Alvarez had been a last-minute substitute for a sick judge.
Alvarez’s computer had been infected with a virus to track her, so she was the target. A search showed Baker had represented Oscar Rodriguez (Bobby Roman), a coder whose parents were arrested by Mulder, and Alvarez had deported them to El Salvador, where a drug gang murdered them. In other words, a major series of motives against Mulder and Alvarez.
A raid on Oscar’s apartment had him missing, but photos and letters showed he and Baker were more than just friends. Baker admitted he knew it was Oscar as soon as he heard the news of the shooting.
Baker said Oscar’s parents were good people who had lived in America for decades and were sent back to die over a legal technicality. While Baker didn’t plot any of this, he could see Oscar overcome with anger and knew what he was going to do. He warned them that Oscar wasn’t going to stop.
Wallace suggested using the computer to track Oscar, which showed another tracking virus was sent to Grange, whose rhetoric made him an obvious target.
Protecting a dangerous target
OA and Wallace arrived at Grange’s home just as a bullet hit Grange, and they all ducked behind a car. Oscar got away with Grange only mildly wounded.
Grange actually blamed Oscar’s parents for their deaths for “being in this country illegally,” with Isobel biting her tongue to offer him a protective detail. He agreed but was still going through with a speech to his donors despite the risk.
Isobel knew trying to shut the speech down wasn’t going to work and that OA had to protect Grange, no matter how much they didn’t like him. Grange at least saw OA wasn’t a fan as OA said every time someone like Grange talked against immigrants, OA saw it as a shot against his parents.
Ethan had the sense to protest the fundraiser, with Grange reminding him, “this is about your mom.” He told OA he didn’t hate immigrants, just the illegal type who killed his wife years ago and had to sound extreme to get elected and try to make some positive changes to the system.
OA still didn’t like it but ordered Grange to at least wear a bulletproof vest.
The rest of the team hated having to protect an area this wide open, but Grange refused to cancel the speech for his image. He naturally used his shooting to fire up the crowd and then broke from the script to step away from the protective shield to greet people.
Maggie saw a flash in a window just as Grange was shot in the neck with Ethan yelling at OA. Scola chased Oscar down a street where he took Elena Ramirez (Sofia Riba) hostage in a laundromat.
The cops and agents surrounded the place as OA blamed himself for the shooting, volunteering to go in with Scola. Baker was brought to the scene but wasn’t sure he could sway his lover.
Wallace entered the laundromat alone to talk to Oscar while OA and Scola entered from the rear. Wallace noted Elena was also an immigrant wanting a better life as Oscar’s parents had.
Baker entered to try and reach Oscar, but the man refused to back down, ready to go out fighting. OA got the drop on him with Oscar trying to shoot and was gunned down before a heartbroken Baker.
Wallace found OA reading on how Grange had raised his son alone after his wife’s death. OA summed up how Grange and Oscar each blamed the other’s system for their losses, and both became consumed by their obsessions for “justice.”
OA came to see Ethan to apologize and even gave him an FBI application to use when he was old enough for inspiration. The two embraced amid their joined pain.
It ended up being a powerful hour for OA amid a tough case showing how easily grief turns into a dangerous obsession.
FBI Season 4 returns with new episodes Tuesday April 12 at 8/7c on CBS.