‘FBI’: John Boyd Teases ‘Emotional’ and ‘High-Stakes’ Winter Premiere for Scola (Exclusive)

FBI is coming back from hiatus on Tuesday with an intense winter premiere, especially for Stuart Scola, and John Boyd spoke to PopCulture.com about what’s going to go down. In the episode “Descent,” premiering on Jan. 28, an investigation into an assistant U.S. attorney’s death “leads the team to a related airline whistleblower scandal and the chilling discovery that they don’t have much time to thwart terrorists from crashing numerous in-flight commercial airplanes. Dealing with the memory of his brother, who was a 9/11 victim, the case pushes Scola hard to prevent another catastrophe.”

The episode is going to be a tough one for Scola, and Boyd shared it’s going to be a “really great episode.” He continued, “Super exciting. I can’t wait for the fans to get to see it. It’s a really, really high-stakes episode. The team has to sort of thwart this terrorist group trying to hijack commercial airlines, and it harks back to Scola’s 9/11 story with his brother. It’s an emotional episode. It’s exciting, a nail-biter. I think it’ll be good, people will like it.”

Any time there’s a callback to a tragic event, whether in-show or in real life, it’s not easy. With the episode referencing 9/11 and trying to make sure that another one doesn’t happen on top of Scola’s connection to that day, it’s certainly as emotional and intense as ever, and it’s something the cast and crew “try to tell in an honest way.”

“We try to do justice to just what a massive loss that was to the country and to loved ones of 9/11 victims,” Boyd said. “It’s something that Scola carries with him on this show, and it’s great to get to tell that story, but it’s a really interesting beginning. There’s a letter on a desk that Maggie and OA tease him about. He hasn’t opened it yet. And in the end of the case, we find out that it’s about something to do with his brother. It opens up a whole different level with his grief and his loss.”

Meanwhile, the winter premiere will also be bringing back Shantel VanSanten as Nina Chase and her return will be both fun and emotional. John Boyd teased that the episode “opens with Scola and Nina eating bagels at the bullpen. We haven’t done that before, an eating scene. Nina’s there at the end. Scola has to rely on Nina at the end with help through this thing. Shantel did a great job. It was really powerful.”

Between Scola’s continuing journey of grief and the overall storyline with the potential airline hijackings, FBI will be having an intense return. Fans may want to prepare themselves for what’s to come. FBI returns this Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.