‘FBI’s Jeremy Sisto Warns ‘Something Pretty Dark’ Is Happening With OA After Anna Takedown

After the end of the second episode of FBI Season 9, Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) is in on the secret of OA (Zeeko Zaki) being undercover with Anna’s (Claire Coffee) strike team to take them down. And the third episode sees the rest of the team read in as well, because the situation has gotten that serious. But to take down Anna, they need to find out who’s shielding her — and be wary of what could happen, should ADIC Green (Curtiss Cook) find out … maybe? TV Insider spoke with Sisto about the reveals of the episode and what’s next. Warning: Spoilers for FBI Season 9 Episode 3 ahead!

OA successfully plants a bug so that the team can listen in on Anna’s calls with her shield, who ends up being Ernest Carver (Terry Serpico), the under secretary of defense in the Department of Defense. As they discover, with Green on board after he catches them, she helped keep his son out of prison after a teen girl died in his car by staging a suicide … but their investigation to get someone in his family to flip (first his son, then, after his “death via overdose,” another staged death, him) on Anna. Ernest finally does, after it’s determined that he had been the one in the car with the teen girl that night.

By the time the team is on the way to arrest Anna and get OA out of there, he’s been made and ended up on the wrong side of Devin’s fists. But OA gets a chance to fight back in the ensuing shootout between the FBI and the strike team, and he even saves Devin from falling to his death.

But the episode does feature some interesting character beats. When Jubal apologizes to Isobel (Alana De La Garza) for following her (which is how he learned about the undercover op), she tells him not to check her math when she decides without him. He admits he was surprised she didn’t want his input, and she says she didn’t want to be talked out of it.

Meanwhile, Anna remarks to OA that she’s seen how his time with the strike team has changed him and he’s no longer the same person he was. Then, when it’s wrapped up and Anna is in custody, OA and Maggie go to a bar. Some days, she really thought he’d died, she tells him, and he explains that he didn’t reach out because if he’d been caught, that chain of communication would be a target list. But when she comments that he must be happy to see his badge again, there’s something about the way he looks at it…

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Below, Jeremy Sisto teases what’s next after that takedown.

How satisfying was it to not only take down Anna, but to do it as a team and to have Jubal on site and hand the cuffs to OA? Because Jubal does not leave the JOC often. So when he does, it’s for something big, and this was obviously big.

Jeremy Sisto: Yeah, it was big because it was really big for Isobel and OA. I mean, it was big because when you’re on this job, there’s some challenging choices to make. There’s some fine lines to walk. And you always have to keep hold of your sense of values and morals when it comes to accomplishing what you feel is necessary in a case. So when you come upon someone in your world that has no qualms about just completely ignoring morals, it really becomes a personal issue. And so that’s why Isobel and OA and the whole team take this upon themselves to root this out in a really — it’s like taking a cancer out in your system. It’s like you got to go in and make sure you get all the remnants in there, too, because that kind of thing can really take down an organization if it’s not done in a way that protects the core values.

But now there seems to be this question of how OA feels about being back. There’s the way he’s looking at his badge at the end and those comments from Anna about how he’s changed being with the strike team. So what can you say about what Jubal is going to be seeing in OA as he gets back to work?

I think Jubal is as aware as he is more through Isobel. It’s her job to make sure these partnerships are working. OA is going to be going through some challenging stuff, and I think his partnership with Maggie is going to be tested in a new way. Obviously, they’ve been tested before, but there is something pretty dark that seems to be happening within him at this point. So it’s been great to watch Mike [Weiss, showrunner] and his team and the actors explore that and try to find a path that feels real and earned, and it’s complicated, and I think these relationships have earned it. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge, but this is something that really is going to take some delving into to get through.

Isobel tells Jubal she didn’t read him in because she didn’t want to be talked out of it. Would he have talked her out of it?

I mean, ultimately, he is very good at saying, “You’re the boss, and I’ll follow you to hell.” But he sees multiple sides to most issues, and I think that’s an important person to have, and it also can be an irritating person to have around when you’re doing something that you know walks a line that you’re not completely certain you should be on. So I don’t think he would’ve talked her out of it, but I think he would’ve challenged her throughout.

Are we going to see any tension there between Jubal and Isobel as a result, or is it just like, “This is business as usual, this is part of the job, we’re moving forward”?

There is a conversation to be had, but it’s pretty clear. Jubal has a pretty full understanding of why she did it, and he doesn’t blame her. There might be some hurt there. There might be some even questioning of whether she was thinking properly, thinking it through in the way he might’ve hoped she was. But ultimately, he respects where she was coming from and why she didn’t bring him into it. So I don’t think it affects — it goes into a longstanding relationship where there’s mutual respect there.

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ADIC Green, upon finding out what the team’s doing, just goes, “I want in.” Did that surprise Jubal?

For sure. He was definitely uncertain about the new ADIC, and he’s got a nephew that he put on the plate. So it’s been a really nice reveal to see that this guy that came pretty hot out of the gate about my way or the highway, got on my team. And that’s a scary notion when someone says, “You might have to put your morals aside to be on my team.” And obviously nobody on our team is OK with that. But what is nice is that — and maybe partially because he put himself out there by recommending his nephew, but I think more than that, it’s just that he has a similar moral code and his coming in holla out of the gate was more about him testing the waters, seeing if there’s anyone that is in this crew that likes to go out and be a rebel for the purposes of their own ego or anything like that. So it turns out that that’s more what it is. He was kind of testing the mettle of the people around him, and selfishly, he’s a great actor, great character. He brings so much warmth and dynamic to the scenes that I’m glad he’s one of us.

I really liked Jubal giving OA his badge back.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was fun to do.

What’s coming up for Jubal? Is there anything with his family? Are we going to see him out of the JOC again soon?

Well, there’s a really cool episode on CIA where I go over, and I help Nikki [Necar Zadegan] out on a case, and it’s a really fun adventure where it’s a slightly different tone of the show. So there’s a bit more of a sense of humor that can be utilized that Jubal feels comfortable.

And then coming up, we have some pretty intense stuff, but I haven’t read it yet. I’ve just heard the pitches of what happens, and it sounds pretty crazy. It sounds pretty crazy where his wife gets caught up in his day job, and so that’s never a good thing. They’ve been back together for a while now, and I think it is that longstanding story that we’ve explored before, which is that when you’re married to someone in this job, it’s really a third dynamic, that it’s not easy, and they’re both going to have to figure out how to make this work.

Last time it happened that one of his CIs went to her house, went to our house, and he promised her this was not ever going to happen again. And so I imagine if, from what I can tell, is happening in these next few episodes, it’s going to be a challenge for their marriage. But I can’t give away too much, but I’m excited about that. So far, things have been in a good place with him and his marriage, and the kids have been doing well. No news is good news on FBI, because the only time that those storylines come into play is when they’re affecting the day job, and that means they’ve gotten bad. So far, everything seems to be good, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable in that safety or that disconnection between the two worlds.

Yeah, because we’ve seen every time his son is involved is in an episode, it’s never anything good. But then there’s also the fact that he has a daughter that… Are we going to see her?

I mean, I’ve definitely wondered as well if she was going to come into play. And yeah, I mean, it does open up the possibility of a lot of different storylines, but Mike and his team are doing such a great job at exploring these different topics and these different geopolitical elements and these big stories. And I think that is the most important thing about this show, and all the character comes from that. And Jubal has been such a rich character over the years that, of course, I am always excited when stuff comes into play, but it’s challenging. Because the private life has to be really, really crappy in order to enter into the plot of FBI, you don’t want overkill. You have to find the right spot. So they’re working really hard to keep that stuff alive without feeling forced.

Can’t wait to see you on CIA because I love the Jubal and Colin stuff, I have to say.

Yeah, yeah. We haven’t had that much, but it was a nice little thing. Yeah, I think they thought we were going to be more at each other’s throats, but we played it like we kind of liked each other.

FBI, Mondays, 8/7c, CBS