FBI has one major question to answer when it returns for its eighth season on Monday, October 13: Is Isobel (Alana De La Garza) alive?! The Special Agent in Charge collapsed after sustaining injuries during a blast in the Season 7 finale. And fans will continue to have to wait, at least for a bit.
“We don’t know right from the beginning,” Missy Peregrym (Maggie Bell) tells TV Insider of Isobel’s fate. “It’ll take the whole episode.” As for how the others will handle that, “We’re a family, so as you would expect,” says Zeeko Zaki (Omar Adom “OA” Zidan).
Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) is stepping in as boss while they await Isobel’s fate, and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge is getting thrown right into it. The premiere case sees the team investigate a federal judge who has disappeared and was looking for his missing son on a secluded island on the city’s edge where authority has crumbled.
“Things go sideways, and [Jubal’s] got to make some pretty big calls and is not sure if he’s doing a good job, if he’s doing the right thing, especially with his agents on the ground and us being in a tough position,” Peregrym teases.
Maggie and OA will handle that situation “well,” says Zaki. “But it is very intense. We do get put into a very unique situation that we, I don’t think, have been in yet, and it’s really fun to play and I think it’s going to be even more fun to watch.”
Bennett Raglin/CBS
Adds Peregrym, “We’ve got a crazy thing that happens at the end that I’m not even going to tell you about, but no one’s going to see this coming and it has nothing to do with Isobel.”
The partners will also be investigating a murder on a plane in an upcoming episode that is still “really intense,” according to Peregrym, but, says Zaki, not as much as what OA went through on the train when he and Gemma (Comfort Clinton) were just trying to have a weekend away.
“Something really scary happens to OA,” teases Peregrym. As for how Maggie handles that, “Not well,” she continues. “I’ll do anything to save my partner. And so it was actually really great to play. I was excited to be a part of that. We haven’t done that in a minute. Well, I guess you did bring me back to life,” she turns to Zaki, who agrees. “You’re usually the one going through it,” he points out.
It sounds like just another situation where we’ll see just how important Maggie and OA are to each other. And that’s something the show has continued to highlight without turning their relationship romantic. Both Peregrym and Zaki celebrate that fact.
“There’s something really great about the fact that we aren’t together, but have this relationship and our partners, and I love being able to play that. And actually I think it’s really significant and you don’t want to mess that up,” she says before adding, “That being said, I’m not the writer, so who knows?”
Zaki notes, “I think it’s rare in the real world and even rarer on tv, so it’s really fun to get to play that.”
Also coming up this season: Scola (John Boyd) gets a new partner in Juliana Aidén Martinez‘s character. “She doesn’t come in until later, but it’s definitely a different energy. She’s a prosecutor, so she has a background in a different way than any of us, which is fun to play and play off of,” says Peregrym. “That’s something that’s also being explored and will take a bit of time to get to know her.”
As for whether or not any characters from the canceled FBI spinoffs, Most Wanted or International, could pop up, Zaki says nothing’s planned yet, “but we’re really excited and I think that’ll be a really cool way to keep those stories in the big world that we’ve created alive.”
Watch the video above for more from Missy Peregrym and Zeeko Zaki on their partnership remaining platonic — will that change? — as well as where Maggie is when it comes to romance this season and OA’s relationship with Gemma.
FBI, Monday, October 13, 9/8c, CBS