FBI celebrated a major milestone in its run on March 23, with the fifteenth episode of its eighth season serving as the show’s 150th episode!
It’s a milestone that fewer and fewer series these days manage to hit, which makes it an incredible feat for FBI. For its 150th episode, the FBI team worked to track down a dangerous drug kingpin from Eva’s past after two kids and a daycare worker were killed by accidental drug exposure. The episode was an amazing hour for fans, but there was sadly one key member of the cast missing from the milestone episode: Missy Peregrym.
Despite her status as one of only three actors who have been a part of the show since its pilot episode, Peregrym did not appear in the 150th episode of FBI. It was a decision that disappointed the fans, but one that made sense given the events of episode 14, which are the direct reason that Peregrym did not appear as Agent Maggie Bell in the episode.
Missy Peregrym did not appear in FBI season 8, episode 15 due to the death of Maggie’s sister
Episode 14 of FBI season 8 hit close to home for Maggie when Ray DiStefano returned, and this time he targeted Maggie’s sister, Erin, to get to her.
Early in the episode, we watched as Erin was abducted, and we’d come to learn that it was Ray who had taken her. Ray had catfished Erin via a dating app, which he used to lure her into his trap, which allowed him the opportunity to abduct her. After receiving a video of Erin tied to a chair in his father’s home, Maggie raced to the scene, where she was knocked out by Ray and taken to an abandoned campground.
Maggie was eventually able to free herself from Ray and narrowly escaped death when he attempted to pull her over a cliff with him, but sadly Maggie was unable to save her sister’s life. Ray had killed Erin, with her body discovered in Ray’s vehicle at the scene of the crime.
Following Erin’s death, Maggie takes some time off in episode 16 for her sister’s funeral which is why Maggie does not appear in the episode.
The good news is that Peregrym will be back in episode 16, and fans will get to see Maggie coping with the loss of her sister in the only way she knows: returning to work. While in the past, Maggie has been able to dust herself off again and move on, that won’t be the case this time around.
“I return and think that the best thing to do is to come back to work. It's how I've dealt with loss in the past and it's the only place I know. It's my whole life. I just think I'll get back up on my feet and with time, I'll move on, and that is not the case. That can't be the case. I'd never experienced something to this level and it's not just about losing my sister and the shame and guilt of not being able to protect her. It's the fact that it's completely my fault. My lives merged into this horrible center and I lost everything. I didn't just lose Erin. I lost trust in myself. I lost trust for how I operate in the world and how I communicate and how I move, because that's what got me here in this position in the first place. There's no way I can just come back to work and be myself. I don't even know what that means,” Peregrym previewed in an interview with TVLine.
It's going to be interesting to see how Erin's death will impact and shape Maggie's storyline as season 8 proceeds. There is no denying that this is a loss that will stay with Maggie, and understandably so. We fully expect that Maggie will blame herself for Erin's death, and it's going to take her a while to work through those feelings.
The tease that Maggie will have lost trust in herself is going to be an interesting area to explore. In the field, agents must rely on their instincts and trust their guts. Now that Maggie has lost trust in how she operates as an agent, it's going to be interesting to see how those doubts impact her in the field.
We also have to wonder whether the loss of her sister could have Maggie questioning her future within the FBI. It would be understandable for her to consider walking away from the job, and we imagine this will be something she might explore. We just hope that it doesn't lead to Peregrym's exit from the series.