Warning! Spoilers ahead of FBI season 8, episode 22, "Defector."OA has been fired, and it could have been prevented if Isobel had made a different choice earlier in FBI season 8. CBS' 2025-2026 TV cycle only has a few shows left to wrap up this week, including Dick Wolf's only flagship that isn't on NBC. FBI season 8 was eventful for a lot of reasons, with 26 Fed experiencing several highs and lows. So it only made sense for the series to wrap up the year with an extra complicated case with an unusual villain.
In FBI season 8, episode 22, "Defector," Anna Vorpe returned as the head of NSA. Her encounter with 26 Fed was purely coincidental, as Isobel's team happened to respond to hijacking that was apparently part of a covert operation. Throughout the hour, OA, Maggie, Scola, and Eva were forced to play nice with Vorpe and her team, until they were betrayed at the end and forced to forge their reports after she, with the support of newly appointed ADIC Lawrence Green, wanted to cover up a bio-attack in the middle of Manhattan that resulted in multiple deaths. Understandably, OA argued against it, which led to his firing by Isobel's boss.
Isobel Previously Turned Down The ADIC Position In FBI Season 8
The major twist at the end of "Defector" was that getting booted out of the team and recruited by Vorpe was part of Isobel and Maggie's plan to take down the rogue law enforcement team. Per showrunner Mike Weiss (via TVLine), FBI season 9 will stick with this plan, as it would be months of Zeeko Zaki going undercover with the strike team. While it makes for an interesting storytelling future, the situation with Vorpe didn't have to get this serious that OA had to go out and risk his life to take her down if only Isobel accepted the ADIC job earlier in the year.
For context, due to her actions in the FBI season 7 finale and the circumstances of the organization, Isobel was offered the job to be ADIC. She decided against moving up, however, when she learned that Jubal wasn't going to be her successor, she decided to stay put. While this allowed the core team to stay together, as she has remained involved in the day-to-day operations of the team, it set up the arrival of Green, who, at least based on the FBI season 8 finale, isn't exactly cut from the same cloth as them when it comes to principles of handling the job.
How Isobel Being ADIC Could Have Prevented FBI Season 8 Finale's Catastrophe
One notable conversation in "Defector" involved Maggie and OA rushing to Isobel about their grievances with Vorpe. The current SAC agreed with their issues but reasoned that she had already tried sounding the alarm on her. At this point, the only thing that could take her down would be a silver bullet. What made this worse was when they all got into the room, Green sided with Vorpe taking the lead on the case.
Had Isobel been the ADIC in FBI season 8, not only would she have more professional powers, the team wouldn't need to deal with her current boss. Instead of arguing for the team and being, ultimately, kept in the dark about the status of the bus, she would have had more access to information that would have made it easier for them to take down Vorpe. At the very least, she would have been able to properly vouch for her team instead of being forced to follow by Green.
While there are theories that Green may actually be in on the scheme for OA to infiltrate Vorpe's operations, the way the final scenes of the FBI season 8 finale unfolded heavily suggested that only he, Maggie, and Isobel were aware of the scheme. Even Jubal, Scola, and Eva were kept out of the loop, not because they wanted to, but out of necessity. The fewer people knew, the higher the chances of its success.
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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