The FBI team is in for a rough ride going into the holiday break.
Stars Jeremy Sisto and John Boyd are previewing the upcoming winter finale episode where an old foe targets the team, which puts those they love in the crosshairs.
Their words indicate the fallout of this ep will haunt the team for quite a while.
An old enemy returns
In Season 3, the FBI team ran afoul of Antonio Vargas (David Zayas), leader of the most powerful drug cartel in the world. He was arrested but got his release when his men planted a bomb on tech Elise (Vedette Lim).
Vargas returned in the Season 3 finale, once more threatening bombs across New York if he wasn’t released. This time, Isobel played hardball by using Vargas’ own family against him.
Now, in this week’s episode, Unfinished Business, Vargas, while in jail, is still out for revenge. The first person on his list? Rina (Kathleen Munroe), who’s shot by a sniper while with lover Jubal.
Talking to Give Me My Remote, Sisto previewed the dramatic hour and how it shakes Jubal, who has to focus on stopping Vargas even as he worries over his lover.
“Being in the FBI, Jubal has been through traumatizing events, but he…stays out of the line of fire, most of the time, in his position. And this, of course, goes beyond the job, because someone very close to him gets hurt. I think it’s an added psychological emotional disruption for Jubal, because he’s a recovering alcoholic, and it’s really his first effort putting himself out there.
It’s pretty post-trauma for him. He doesn’t have any time to process it. He’s also just on guard for his own life—he was nearly killed, as well, presumably. And he and the team find out that danger to them and their families…because of Vargas having them in his crosshairs. There’s a lot going on.”
However, Rina is just the first of the targets, with the episode promo showing Maggie also wounded.
A deadly game ensues
What follows is a deadly game as Vargas, in his cell, continues to navigate attacks not only on the FBI team but their loved ones.
John Boyd, who plays Stuart Scola, adds that Vargas brings the team out of their comfort zone of safety by getting at them anywhere.
“In this one, when you have this supervillain that’s now found a way to target, personally, agents outside of work and their families, it takes on a whole different level of a threat. It’s really a cool convention that they found to bring Vargas back and use it. For Scola, it’s just this new intense sort of personal threat level that we’ve never had on this show before. I think that’s what really makes it such an interesting dynamic. Even the team is [thinking], is this a little scary? No one wants to really say, ‘I’m terrified,’ but it’s like, ‘I don’t know if I signed up for this here. This is getting a little personal.'”
There is no word on Rina’s fate, but Sisto indicates that Vargas is using unique means to get at the team. “Technology, spying, assassination, all this stuff becomes a much more complex and scary concept. And this is a particularly… it’s almost lo-fi, in a way, that you can really understand how somebody can put a machine like this together to get whatever job complete that you’re going for.”
However the case falls out, the ramifications will continue, and Sisto hints it may lead to drama for the new episodes in 2022.
“[Vargas] is a very, very powerful man, even behind bars. And what we find out is that the resentment is not just the fact that we were successful in putting him away… there’s something even more personal. And so some of our teams’ past actions come back to haunt us in a way that will continue this danger into the characters’ lives beyond this episode.”
If Sisto’s words are to be believed, then this episode might change the lives of the FBI team forever and make Vargas, even behind bars, the team’s greatest enemy.
FBI Season 4 airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.