Warning: SPOILERS ahead for FBI season 8, episode 22!FBI season 9 is going to be a very different chapter for the series.
The procedural TV show has gotten a confirmed time jump after OA's shocking twist in the season 8 finale, with the series star and showrunner unpacking what's next. FBI season 8 ended with ADIC Lawrence Green relieving OA of his duties after the agent refuses to fake a field report. This results in Anna Vorpe offering him a job, which would put him on duty for the Department of Defense. In episode's final moments, he calls Maggie and Isobel, revealing his getting fired was a purposeful stunt so the team can continue investigating Anna's crimes.
Speaking with TVLine, Zeeko Zaki, who plays OA, explained the importance of his character's investigation into Anna, whose team was torturing truck drivers for information earlier in the FBI season 8 finale. He explained how the decision for OA to join Anna's team will be a strain on his morality, while also being something he feels obligated to do in order to continue his investigation and seek justice. This ensures that he can keep investigating, even after the NSA covered up the events of the final episode:
I think the saying is: 'If you can't beat them, join them." But with OA's meteoric moral compass, it will be fun to watch how far we can bend it to save the day and do what is right. It's always fun to see the team in a way you haven't before, and I think this is a great way to do that and start Season 9.
In addition to Zaki's statement, showrunner Mike Weiss confirmed that there will be a time jump of "weeks or months" before FBI season 9 picks back up. This will allow the story to continue with OA undercover at his new position, so much so that nobody has seen him since he got his job offer. It means the show can pick up with the team already making significant progress in the investigation. Weiss also explained what it would be like for characters who weren't brought in on the plan to take Anna down:
We're going to start Season 9 with OA having been gone for weeks or months. He's deep undercover. No one has seen him. I don't even know yet, because it's early days, but we'll have to figure out a way... how can you report back to your team when you're embedded with, as we've seen, really, really dangerous, capable military operators. So that's going to be difficult. Just to get him and Maggie in the same room will be a challenge in a fun way, at the top of Season 9.
There will be some fallout from some of the other characters who were not brought in on the plan, and I think getting to see Scola and Jubal be like, 'Hey man, that sucked that you didn't tell us that you were only fired for pretend,' will be difficult, but fun for the audience.
OA has always been a character in FBI guided by his morality, which makes him taking the job from Anna of his own free will somewhat farfetched. Luckily, it seems nobody suspects a single thing, with OA having the perfect cover to get even deeper intel on Anna and her team. This comes not only after they inflicted torture on people, but also after the NSA tried covering up a deadly RNA virus outbreak, leading to the request for fake field reports. Of course, this is a rouse by the team to get more intel on Anna and her actions.
When FBI returns in fall 2026, the show will be quite different from how it was before, mostly because of OA's new role by Anna's side. As his investigation continues, it will likely turn up more questions and answers about how Anna's team is operating, alongside a potential new story thread that will explain how the show's focus will develop moving ahead. This will further lead him down a rabbit hole that can help bring justice to those Anna has wronged.
But the show may also feature some complications, since the setup might be for a storyline that lasts far longer than FBI season 9's premiere episodes. If that's the case, then it's possible the show will include a number of new ideas that crop up in its forthcoming episodes, making for a compelling return that will challenge OA and the rest of the team in new ways.
CIA Season 2's Fate Officially Decided By CBS After Rocky Season 1 Production
The fate of CBS' new FBI spinoff series, CIA, has now been decided.
CBS confirmed that CIA has officially been renewed for season 2, following impressive viewership numbers from its series premiere. According to Paramount, the premiere episode saw 8.4 million multiplatform viewers via broadcast and streaming within the first seven days of its release.
Ratings for the first three episodes of the series showed a 39% improvement on Monday at 10 p.m. compared to the same timeslot in fall 2025.
Behind the scenes, though, CIA has had a rocky production. FBI: Most Wanted showrunner David Hudgins was initially in charge of the series, but Warren Leight later replaced him. That wasn't the end of the turnover, though, as he eventually departed, along with executive producer Eriq La Salle. Mike Weiss, who was the showrunner on the original FBI series, was hired as the CIA showrunner.
All of this turmoil, plus Michael Michele's departure from the cast, caused production delays, and CBS decided to give CIA a mid-season 2026 premiere after previously announcing it would debut in fall 2025.
CIA stars Tom Ellis and Nick Gehlfuss as CIA Agent Colin Glass and FBI Agent Bill Goodman, respectively, who are tasked with working together on a secretive joint CIA/FBI task force. The two agents couldn't be more different, with the latter a rule-follower and the former more mischievous in nature.
While on the job together, Glass and Goodman stay in the shadows as they solve domestic and international crimes away from the eyes of the public.
Before CIA, Ellis was best known for his role as Lucifer Morningstar on the Fox/Netflix drama Lucifer, while Gehlfuss has starred in The Newsroom, Shameless, and Chicago Med (another Dick Wolf-created series).
Their CIA co-stars include Necar Zadegan and Natalee Linez. Zadegan, who plays Nikki Reynard, will guest star in the March 30 episode of FBI season 8, in which the Deputy Chief of Station is called in to help following a double homicide. The episode will mark Maggie Bell's return to the team after suffering a major loss.
Wolf created the hugely popular Law & Order and One Chicago franchises on NBC, and then went on to create the FBI crime procedural franchise for CBS. The first FBI series debuted in 2018 with star Missy Peregrym and is currently airing its eighth season.
Two years later, the first spinoff, FBI: Most Wanted, launched and aired for six seasons. FBI: International followed in its footsteps and aired for four seasons.
CIA, which currently has a 63% critic score and 51% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, marks the third FBI spinoff, with Wolf, Weiss, Ken Girotti, Paul Cabbad, Nicole Perlman, David Chasteen, Anastasia Puglisi, and Peter Jankowski serving as executive producers.
CIA airs Mondays at 10 p.m. EDT on CBS.
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