FBI | First Impression

Hello and welcome back to The nerd shelf!

Today's post is going to be on my first impression of one of the shows that were mentioned in my My Eight Most Anticipated New Shows | Fall 2018 post, FBI.

FBI is a procedural drama about the inner workings of the New York office of the FBI, bringing to bear all the Beauru's skills, intellect and mind-blowing technology to keep New York and the country safe.

The trailer for FBI:

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

*UPDATE:

I was just watching episode two and I realised that Dana is not in the pilot. So whenever I talk about Dana in this post I'm actually talking about Ellen Solberg (Connie Nielsen).

So first off, I really enjoyed this pilot. It was intense, emotional and it held my attention throughout. I know when I'm not really into a show when all I want to do is look at my phone and that definitely wasn't the case with this one. The show is created by one of my favorites, Dick Wolf. He's the one who created Law & Order, the Chicago franchise (Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Chicago Justice) which I love. I'm obsessed with the Chicago franchise. I started to watch Chicago Fire earlier this year and I watched all six season in fucking TWO WEEKS! But that's beside the point. Point is that he's an amazing writer and he has created some of my favorite procedurals, so I was excited as soon that I saw that he was involved.

This pilot was really good. It wasn't my favorite but definitely not bad. It held my attention very well.

I'm going to go through the case first and then go through the characters. So the first episode revolves around a residential apartment building being demolished in a bombing, well technically two bombings. In the beginning, they believe that it's a gang war but after the second bombing, they think that maybe it's something else. It turns out to be a plot lead by Robert Lawrence (Dallas Roberts) who is apart of the alt-right. He runs a fund for national greatness, and he needs money for it. So he decides to bomb different places around new york to get people to join him. The last part of his plan was to bomb a summit with minority leaders but he gets too cocky and it doesn't go his way.

Now let's get into the characters. Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) and Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan (Zeeko Zaki) are both FBI special agents who are working this case. They seem to be relatively new partners, and throughout the show, we find out that they are fairly new to the new york office. Omar used to be an undercover agent and Maggie used to be stationed in Indiana.

When they are at the location of the first bombing Maggie stops a woman from going into the building to get her son because they are evacuating. She ultimately saves her life when a second bomb goes off. The whole fucking building comes down. It looked like when they are blowing up a building instead of tearing it down piece by piece. It goes straight down. It looked really cool and it was a great opening to the show. The woman was not that great, and I understand why. I feel like one of the worst things someone can experience is having your own child die before you because that's not what's supposed to happen. The parents are supposed to die before their children, or at least that's what you grow up to believe. The older people go first. So having a child die especially when you feel like you were stopped from saving him has to be fucking terrible. Maggie seems to take this really hard and it's something we see throughout the episode. She feels really guilty.
  We find out that Maggie lost her husband. We don't know how yet but we do know that she went back to work a few days later. What the fuck. I couldn't imagine doing that but I'm extremely comfortable with my emotions. I think that she probably threw herself back to work so that she didn't have to deal with it. And maybe she moved to new york to escape it as well. She has a photo of him in a drawer in her desk. She's clearly not over it, and I don't think she should be. I want to know how he died, and hopefully, we will find out this season.
I loved the end scene when she goes to the funeral of the boy who died. The mother and Maggie shared a look and I felt like the mother might have forgiven her.

Omar. Omar is interesting. When they find the leg with a cellphone melted into it he has no problem with peeling it off.  It leaves me questioning what he has gone through to be able to do it with no problem. What the fuck did he do when he was undercover? They mentioned that he was tracking terrorists when he was undercover and that world can be brutal. I hope we get some more information on that. When they are trying to get information off of the phone Omar wants to forget protocol and just do things. Dana Mosier (Sela Ward), the team's supervisor, comes in and lectures Omar on how this place works. I love this scene because she's not yelling and she doesn't sound angry at all, she's calm and professional. She's just telling him that if he ever has a problem he needs to go to her and she can fix it. He's not undercover anymore and he needs to learn that he can't just do whatever he wants. Everything should go through her probably because if they ever get backlash because of something it will land on her. I feel like we might see more of him trying to do things before going through her.

I love Maggie and Omar's partnership. They have each other's backs and they work well together. The banter between them is great, small things like who's going to drive etc. I love those little details because it really shows us who the characters are. The interrogation scenes were great. I really love the scene when they first go to see Robert. He frustrates me and he's so incredibly racist and rude towards Omar, but Maggie is there the whole time having Omars back. And then the scene when they go to the news station and confront him. Oh, how I loved that scene. He really believes that he has them, that his plan is going to go all the way. And then it doesn't and they have proof on him. Loved it. I also loved that Omar drove Maggie to the funeral in the end. I felt a slight hint towards a romantic relationship between them but I don't know if I want it yet. I would like to see them as just partners and maybe even best friends but maybe my opinion will change, this was after all only the pilot.

Dana Mosier is a great character. As I've already said I loved the scene with her and Omar. She just seems like a boss. She knows when to push and when to not. She can be a little rougher if she needs to. And all while doing it she just stays calm and professional. She never gets flustered or shows that she is irritated. I'm hoping we get to see more of her backstory.

We also have Jubal Valentine (Jeremy Sisto). He seems to be the team leader. He's in the office delegating and giving people orders. Every bit of intel goes through him. We didn't see a lot of him so I don't have much to say about him yet but so far I like him.

The last character I want to mention is Kristen Chazal (Ebonée Noel). She is an FBI analyst. I love her. She so smart and good at what she does. She basically becomes an expert on bombs because of her research. And because of that, she is able to disarm the bomb at the summit. I really want to get to know more about her.

So final thoughts, first off I really enjoyed it. As I said it wasn't my favorite pilot but it was really really good. I love a good procedural and when it comes from Dick Wolf it's usually great and this lived up to my expectations. I'm definitely going to keep watching.

/Johanna