Here’s the thing about OA and Maggie – both become obsessed with details or things that have happened in the past. Both have a way of trying to hide it, even though they don’t always succeed at it.
Because the truth is that the past has a habit of coming back to find you. It makes you face it. It doesn’t hold anything back. And tonight, OA was haunted by the past and it gets to be very tricky for the the entire team.
We guess it’s true when our parents told us – you can’t outrun your past, it always catches up to you in some way, shape, or form.
Let’s break this episode of FBI down.
This case is about the death of a TSA agent, so we think, but it turns out to be so much more. The agent is on the payroll of someone and is waving people through security without checking what they had. She wants out, because he boss is suspicious.
And wanting out gets her murdered. The people who murdered her clean up the casings and there are little to no clues.
Tiff and Scola are talking to the victims boss asking questions. He tells them that something was up with her, that she had come in one day with a brand new mustang and claimed her father died and left her cash. But in his experience, that kind of flashiness means that they are in the drug trade.
The team is digging into her past and the victims life is kinda boring. It’s basically work, but she’s spending a lot of time at a restaurant – a Mediterranean food restaurant – to the point it’s suspicious. Cancel your lunch OA and Nina, you’re going to the restaurant.
Nina has been picking up on the fact that OA is a little frazzled. It’s the 10 year anniversary of his friends death and him and his friends went to the gravesite. Nina takes it as a sign that he’s stressed. Especially when OA spots someone and runs after him.
Who did he think he saw? Someone that him and his unit had chased in Afghanistan. Nina is doubtful, but OA knows what he saw and he knows how it made him feel. These two definitely don’t have the connection that him and Maggie have, but that’s not a bad thing. It forces us to see OA in a new light.
But it also forces Nina to think that OA is not okay, especially when he won’t believe that Tamir is dead. He doesn’t care what intelligence says, he knows what he believes. Nina is trying to do the right thing, but on the other hand is concerned and tells Jubel that she’s worried about OA and the way that he’s reacting. She’s concerned that he’s not in a good place. Jubel offers to talk to him, but she says that she’s got it. She just felt that he should know.
In scrubbing the laptop that they found at the TSA agents apartment, they are able to learn that the TSA agent waved through a man in a red jacket. Of course they find him and of course when they get to his house, he runs. I couldn’t do all the cardio for this show, man. Tiff clothes lines him and they go to take him in. He can run, but you can’t avoid Tiff. She will get you.
OA sees a man in a similar jacket that the man that he thinks that Tamir was wearing. He takes off to try and get to him, but he’s wrong. But it’s not Tamir, not even close. OA is making everyone worry and Nina looks as though he’s lost his mind.
Nina and OA are no OA and Maggie. I like her, she’s a good agent, but I do miss Maggie. In interrogation, they aren’t playing good cop/bad cop, and Nina rocks a bitchy resting face and concern in her eyes. They tell Jorge that he needs to help or he’s going right back to prison, because he’s on parole. Jorge claims that he doesn’t know much, he was hired to take a bag to Chicago and he was approached at the same restaurant that OA and Nina were at. The owner is the one that hired him.
Finally, we have a suspect.
OA and Nina tell Jorge that he needs to go in and get paid, which gives the team the chance to get him to wear a wire. Jorge is obviously afraid, and while Nina is trying to be good and take things slow, OA is pressing him. He believes that Tamir is the partner and he wants information. You can tell that Jorge is all sorts of confused and scared. You can also tell that OA isn’t really focusing on anything but Tamir.
Jorge still goes to get paid, and he listens to OA and presses for information about the partner. Nina is trying to keep OA at bay, to get him to lighten up a little, but OA continues to press for more information. OA is convinced that Tamir is involved and isn’t giving up.
Scola picks Jorge up in a taxi to take him to the airport, from the restaurant. When they get far enough away, they stop so he can inspect the backpack. In the backpack is a bomb, one that we find out is the same kind that Tamir liked to use. The bomb was set to go off when it reached a certain altitude.
The team all look a little concerned about OA and this obsession with Tamir. But they are doing their job and they head to the restaurant to arrest Polac. Like everyone else he is a runner. I don’t get why people run, they will catch you. Someone is always gonna come out of nowhere.
When they get there, they find out that he’s actually an Afghanistan national, he’s a terrorist. OA is determined to press for the partner, but Jubel reminds him that intelligence says that he’s dead and that’s what they are going to go by. Jubel is trying to reign things in, but lets be real, no one can reign in OA.
That’s evident when they are interrogating Polac, the owner of the restaurant, and OA presses him about Tamir. The man is trying to play dumb, but OA and Nina aren’t buying his shit. They want information, but when he invokes his right to counsel they don’t have a choice but to leave.
Everyone is doubting OA, but OA is following his gut and he’s having every move that he can followed to figure out where Tamir is. It doesn’t matter that the rest of the team is, this is something OA won’t give up on.
Scola on the other hand is with Nina and Tiff, looking for the new TSA agent. It ends up that it was the supervisor, but when they go to arrest him, they find out that his Mom and kid have been kidnapped and if he doesn’t let the guy on the plane, they will be killed.
OA knows where Tamir is. He calls Jubel and tells him that he’s going to where Tamir is. He asks Jubel to send the team and even though everyone is doubting his feelings on this guy being the man that he’s been searching for, they send the team.
They are all doubtful and wearing it all over their faces. OA is not swayed though. He is irritated when they won’t listen when he tells them that Tamir will have a way out and will have the place set to blow. Everyone is looking at him as though he has lost it and hey, he snaps a bit, but honestly, I can understand why.
Sometimes I think that we all need to follow out instincts. They aren’t always right, but they are not always wrong either. I think that OA is one of those that will always follow his heart, because he genuinely has survived by it.
It turns out his gut wasn’t wrong. Everything he said was right and the entire team has to apologize. Well, they don’t have to, but they do. Nina apologizes and even though he tells her that she doesn’t have to, it was important that she did.
We see the difference between her and Maggie. The different way that they approach things. But seeing OA get some sense of closure and know that he needs to get help, was one of the best things we’ve seen.
Why? Because it’s so important that we see that it doesn’t matter who you are and what people perceive you as and who they deem you to be, you need to listen to your gut. There is no shame in getting help.
FBI airs Tuesdays on CBS.
