‘FBI: Most Wanted’ Star Shantel VanSanten Previews ‘Unresolved Hurt and Anger’ With Nina’s Family (Exclusive)

Tuesday’s FBI: Most Wanted will see Nina’s family coming to town and Shantel VanSanten told PopCulture.com about what to expect. In “White Buffalo,” FBI’s John Boyd guest stars when Nina and Scola face family drama when Nina’s father and sister visit. It’s not going to be the easiest time for them, especially since Nina doesn’t have the best relationship with her father, and her childhood, as fans already know, wasn’t the greatest, family-wise. And VanSanten couldn’t keep down her joy when it came to digging deeper into Nina’s life.

“I am so excited to be able to share that we get to see a little bit further into Nina’s life, and her world is expanding on Most Wanted, and we get to be introduced to her dad and her sister, which is really the only family that she has besides, now Dougie and Scola,” VanSanten shared. “And we get to kinda dive into that relationship and start to understand Nina a little bit more because of, you know, learning about her childhood and just the way that she interacts with her dad.”

As for what happens when Nina’s father and sister come, there’s going to be a lot to unpack. “We learned last season that Nina’s mom died of a drug overdose when she was eight,” the One Tree Hill alum explained. “And so, obviously, there’s a lot of trauma and history in her childhood, and it’s not gonna be easy to reconnect. Dougie is, I think, in the story, he’s around one, and her father still hasn’t met Dougie. And so, there’s a lot of unresolved hurt and anger and things that we are gonna see or feelings we’re gonna see bubble to the surface throughout the episode, and just to also get to see the family interact together.”

Between Nina, Scola, Nina’s sister, and her father, the dynamics are sure to be interesting, especially since it’s “almost like two totally different worlds colliding,” VanSanten said. “It somewhat parallels my own interesting life where, you know, I’m an actress, and I do this for a living, but when I go home to Minnesota to the town that I’m from, 1,000 people, nobody understands what I really do and how it works. And they just know they get to watch the show weekly, and that’s really exciting. But it’s just completely different planets.”

“And living in New York and having a relationship where we are partners, but we’re not married, but we have a kid together,” she continued. “Like all of these things go against what my father would want for Nina in her life, which is a much more conservative, contrived lifestyle. But Nina’s always kind of paved her own path and done things the way that rang true for her. And I think we’re gonna see that Nina doesn’t have as much leniency for her father’s pitfalls as much as maybe you would expect now that she’s a parent. If anything, she is harder on her dad and really wants him to show up for her and for her family.”

Unfortunately, family drama won’t be the only thing that Nina will be dealing with. Also, in the episode, the Fugitive Task Force works to hunt down a couple of young activists whose simple act of defiance goes south, and their plans are close to a devastating outcome. Since the case will more than likely take the team out of town, Nina will have to do some balancing. Jokingly, Shantel VanSanten said it was “a little bit as maybe, ‘Don’t tell Scola,’ but it’s like there’s a little bit of a welcomed respite from having family in town and being able to, like, offload.”

“Like, you’re just praying that that call comes in, and you make the family plans for when they visit, but, ‘Oh, sorry. Work calls, so I gotta go.’ And she has a wonderful partnership with Scola. She’s able to kind of pass it off to him,” she shared. “And he gets to be a little bit further into Nina and why she is the way she is, the way she reacts around family, and more of what her triggers are. I think that’s important for them in their relationship, and it’s also important to know that Scola is there because they have such a solid relationship. And the fact that she can lean on him, not just when they work together, but even in their personal life, I just feel further solid advised their relationship and commitment to one another.”

It sounds like this is going to be an intense episode with a lot of emotions. While it is always exciting to dig deeper into a character, Nina’s background is filled with trauma and painful memories and it’s not going to be so easy when the family comes to town. A new episode of FBI: Most Wanted airs this Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, streaming the next day on Paramount+.