It’s sometimes forgotten that Romeo and Juliet was ultimately a tragedy.
A week after the Season 5 premiere, where OA went to great lengths to handle a bombing, the FBI team had to deal with a robbery involving a pair of young lovers.
However, these two kids from opposite worlds were in way over their heads, leading to murder and a tragic end.
This coincided with Scola and Nina facing some unique turns in their own relationship that played into the case.
That climaxed with Nina making a hard decision that left her shaken up afterward.
This all made Love Is Blind a powerful episode showing how romance can have a dark ending.
A cop killing gets the team going
On the street, a man pulled up before a pawn shop, adjusting his coat where a gun was hidden. He walked in front of a car before entering the shop. Seconds later, gunshots shattered the window as a masked figure raced out, firing his gun to scare onlookers before driving off in that man’s car.
A witness looked into the shop to see the original driver lying on the floor, saying he was a cop and asking for help.
At his apartment, Scola was making coffee as Nina came downstairs already dressed and talking about the shooting. Scola was ready to drive them both, but Nina preferred they drive separately, so others didn’t know they were hooking up.
Detective Brandy Rivers (Carla R. Stewart) identified the victim as Detective Max Villa, with the shop’s owner also killed.
The owner, Chet Roberts, somehow was able to afford a new Mercedes despite his shop not making much money as the team figured he was moving stolen goods on the side.
Lieutenant Ng (Fay Ann Lee) said Villa had been talking about finding a new informant but didn’t have more information on it. They speculated he’d wanted to get Roberts on his side.
Villa had been looking up Logan Reid (Melvin Lee Douglas), a low-level thief who had been in the vicinity of the pawn shop at the time of the murder.
The team tracked Logan to a park, where he tried to run before they caught him with a concealed weapon. He admitted he’d taken a photo of the shooter fleeing the scene.
The police report on the car backed Logan’s story up as they tracked it to see the same man in a red ski mask pulling another robbery. He fired at them, wounding a civilian as the team gave chase.
Scola and Nina chased the guy into an alley, where he fired at them. Scola broke cover to check on Nina, which upset her as the suspect got away.
Tracking the thief down
The team used cameras to find the gunman peeling off his mask and identified him as Devjeet Kamra (Naren Srinivasan), a valedictorian student with no criminal record.
Dev’s parents were thrown by this, claiming that Dev was dating someone they found “unsuitable,” although his sister, Harita (Simran Jetha) defended him for making his own choices. Dev had asked them for a $40,000 loan which they refused.
Wallace talked to Harita privately, who admitted her brother had a private apartment. Scola and Nina checked it out to find a bunch of stolen jewelry.
Scola brought up wanting to protect Nina in the alley, which she chastised as “dangerous and irrational of you.” They saw photos of Dev with his girlfriend as they chatted about their old relationships.
Some papers showed the girl was Skyler Smith (Aimee Spring Fortier), although her mother (Julie Hayes) was surprised to learn she had a boyfriend and was not in school. Scola and Nina tracked down her car to find it empty with blood on the windshield.
Video showed a pair of masked men smashing up the car and dragging Skyler away. The timing indicated this was before Dev’s call to his parents, so he was trying to get ransom money. The car belonged to Tito Martinez (Brian Adam), a local gang member.
Naturally, Tito tried to run from the agents, only to be caught fast.
He tried to play dumb but had Skyler’s DNA under his fingernails to finally give up how Dev had worked for Ramon Cortez to run drugs. But when he panicked to pour some down the drain, he was down $40,000, and Cortez kidnapped Skyler to force him to pay up.
The team raided Cortez’s lab to find him shot dead. They then found security footage of Dev paying Cortez with fake paper, who tried to kill him with Dev shooting back. The badly wounded Dev and Skyler then escaped.
“The things you do for love,” Wallace noted as Scola and Nina shared a look.
A tragic ending
Scola pointed out that the pair were in love as Isobel stated they should still treat Skyler as a victim. They began scoping out clinics for the wounded Dev to follow before remembering Harita was a doctor.
Harita sent out a 911 call with the agents headed to the home, where Dev’s family explained Dev and Skyler had been there with Harita unable to stop Dev’s bleeding. The pair had stolen their car to race off.
The agents tracked them to a gas station where Skyler held a woman hostage as a wounded Dev shot at them. They got into the station while still holding the woman and three employees at gunpoint.
With Dev’s stitches popped, he could die soon, which could set Skyler spinning further. OA talked to Skyler, who refused to see Dev in prison.
Nina volunteered to pose as a paramedic, with Scola hating the idea. Skyler let the pregnant woman go as Nina tried to patch up Dev as best as she could. Skyler talked of how the pair were going to get away to Mexico.
Nina tried to get through to Skyler, but she refused to see Dev go to jail, firing her gun in the air. OA and Wallace wanted to breach, but Scola wanted to give Nina a chance.
Seeing Skyler continue to lose control and with time running out, Nina tricked her into getting some water, causing Skyler to walk right into a sniper’s line of fire. The agents breached to secure the area with Nina shaken at Skyler’s death, she said, “I feel like I failed.”
Scola assured her this wasn’t her fault as they made their own choices. They watched Dev wheeled away, crying at Skyler’s body as Scola and Nina held hands.
Back at the office, Scola reported Dev was likely to recover although under arrest. Nina apologized for her earlier attitude as she had seen the kids “double down with bad decision after bad decision.”
Scola replied, “Love will do that to you,” as he left with Nina looking after him.
It was a rough case of a lover’s adventure gone wrong while also putting the relationship between Nina and Scola into a new light.
FBI Season 5 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.