Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for this past week’s episode of FBI.
The FBI team is going to be down an agent for a while.
This past week’s episode will be the last for Season 4 for Missy Peregrym and Maggie being down for a while will affect the team for a while to come.
Showrunner Rick Eid promises that the final episodes of Season 4 will be more exciting with this huge development.
What happened to Maggie on FBI?
Fear Nothing had the team investigating a murder that led to the discovery of some radicals planning to use sarin gas in an attack. OA (Zeeko Zaki) was deeply affected, having seen sarin used in his army days.
He and Maggie tracked one radical to a lab, where Maggie shot the man in self-defense. But in the struggle, a canister of sarin was set off and Maggie was sealed in a lab.
A tearful Maggie seemed to succumb to the gas as OA frantically rescued her. He managed to get Maggie out and injected her with an antidote.
At the hospital, a heartbroken OA told Maggie she had to be okay and was reassured by her giving a small nod.
The reason for Maggie’s hospitalization isn’t just for the show. Earlier in 2022, Missy Peregrym revealed she was expecting her second child and thus needed maternity leave.
This is nothing new for the show. When Peregrym was expecting in Season 2, Maggie was written off for a time by being sent on a special assignment.
Speaking to Give Me My Remote, showrunner Rick Eid shared how the writers developed this storyline to excuse Maggie’s absence.
“We knew generally when Missy was looking to begin her maternity leave, so we knew we had to do something to give her a proper send off. And then one of the writers, Joe Halpin, had this great idea about illegal chemical weapons resurfacing, and we decided to turn that into the “Maggie going away” episode. We just tried to take that plot and build a character story between her and OA into it.”
While it was a powerful episode, the real impact will be in the fallout.
What’s coming in the rest of FBI Season 4?
Eid confirmed the following episodes will show the fallout of Maggie’s injury. He promises she’ll be okay but OA will be deeply shaken by nearly losing his partner.
“[Episode 20] will explore the emotional pressure he’s under, the stress he’s under, and what he experienced in episode 18. It comes back to [did this huge trauma] affect his judgment, does it not affect his judgment, is he under too much pressure? Does he need to talk to someone, a professional, to deal with some of the stress? Or are the other characters just imagining that’s what he’s going through?”
While Peregrym will be gone for the remainder of Season 4, she is expected to return in time for Season 5, yet Maggie may not be quite the same.
“She will have been out of the office for let’s call it six months in TV time. She’s dealt with physical injuries, probably mental injuries, so you imagine how that [affects] the way she views the world, she views her job, she is how she handles cases, whether there’s trauma, whether there’s other psychological issues that might present. It’s something we need to dig into.”
A question is how the team will continue without a key agent. When Maggie went on her assignment in Season 2, she was briefly replaced by Chicago P.D.’s Hailey Upton (Tracy Spiridakos).
“A new person will be brought into the mix. We’re going to keep it as a surprise for now.”
For the rest of Season 4, Eid promises the May 26 finale will be a powerful one involving Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) and his ill son.
“The finale is, I think, just as intense and scary and emotional as this sarin gas episode, because it involves Jubal and his son. It’s very emotional and powerful…It doesn’t involve his health, specifically; it’s something else entirely. But his son is still battling leukemia. It hasn’t gone away, but [it’s] just a powerful father-son the story.”
While Maggie’s absence will hit some viewers hard, it will also spark Season 4 of FBI as the show moves into the final episodes of the year.
FBI Season 4 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.