FBI Season 5 Episode 6 Review: Double Blind
Well, Nina’s departure certainly could have been handled better.
Instead, her behavior changed radically on FBI Season 5 Episode 6.
With Maggie returning on FBI Season 5 Episode 7, it wasn’t a surprise that Nina had to leave. After all, her tenure with the squad would always last just as long as Maggie’s recovery from exposure to sarin gas.
It could have been simple. Maggie returns, and Nina leaves for the White Collar division. Easy peasy.
But instead, Nina and Stuart’s relationship, which had been on the down low, got impacted as well.
Nina, the unit’s alpha female, went from confident to confused thanks to one test result when she discovered that she was pregnant with Stuart’s child.
Of course, she was surprised when she found out. And her relationship with Scola had hardly been defined. In her mind, it seemed to fall in the “just-having-fun” category, although he appeared to take it much more seriously than her.
When she finally did get around to telling him, her snapping at him earlier made more sense. In her current state of mind, she had no doubts about a mother protecting her child.
All the way through, she seemed to take the position that Liza was doing what she had to to keep her son safe, whatever questionable move Liza made.
Nina had no time to process the news of her pregnancy before the case broke. Fortunately, she lived in one of the two dozen states where she still had a choice.
Wasn’t it convenient that Nina and Stuart got thrown together for one of the rare times this season? And it was a kidnapping when she was in turmoil about the idea of children.
Taking the brunt of her uncertainly was Scola, who has always considered himself lucky to have gotten a second chance with Nina. He asked with concern how she was feeling, and he got brushed off in return.
Later on, when he expressed what his gut was telling him about Liza, rather than being supportive, her response was essentially, “You don’t get it. You’re a male.”
Stuart wasn’t without blame in this situation. As soon as Nina told him about the pregnancy, way too reluctantly, he started smothering her, exactly the reaction she didn’t want.
Fortunately, they had a bizarre case to divert them when a young boy was kidnapped from a well-off single mother who witnessed the abduction on her nanny cam.
The case seemed simple enough. Sit back, wait for the ransom call, and proceed from there. But that call never came, at least in a traditional manner.
Then things got even stranger when it was revealed that the kidnappers were Chechen terrorists. What could they possibly want from a market analyst?
It made more sense once Nina found Liza’s safe, and it was determined that Liza was a CIA officer who came out of the field when her son was born.
That’s all well and good but shouldn’t the CIA be able to keep the home addresses of their agents from falling into the hands of terrorists? You certainly would think so.
Liza had been stringing along the FBI while scheming to deliver who the terrorists wanted to get her son back.
Liza waited for the feds to catch up because she didn’t want to turn over her asset to get Luke back. She was hoping the FBI could come up with a better idea.
Instead, she got Nina’s idea. Nina would pose as the asset because, well, they were both blonde and looked somewhat alike.
This plan wasn’t just some pregnancy-inspired scheme, as Nina previously had gone undercover as an EMT on FBI Season 5 Episode 2.
Fortunately, the thug sent to collect the asset wasn’t supplied with a photo of her on his phone, which only would have made sense. The thug’s grand plan to check her identity was to have her speak Russian.
The climax was predictable from there. The two women overcame the thug. Liza wouldn’t wait for backup and charged in, so Nina had to follow. Nina got shot in the leg, which meant that Nina had to rush in to save Luke, only to end up being saved herself by Scola.
The boy had to go live with his father in London because Nina was facing a boatload of espionage charges for her attempt to rescue him.
In Nina’s mind, there shouldn’t have been any consequences since Liza was doing what she had to to save her child.
Sure, Nina wasn’t sure what her future held. But rather than wandering off to find herself, she should have given Stuart some input into how their relationship should proceed.
Instead, he found himself out in the cold, with no idea what was happening to their child or relationship. By taking leave, Nina took the choice about either out of his hands, which wasn’t fair to him.
So the Nina that left was substantially different than the Nina that was seen for most of this season, which isn’t fair to the character or the viewers.
The good news is that Maggie will be back.
What will be interesting is to see how her near-death experience has changed her.
To revisit Nina’s run, watch FBI online.
Was Nina’s departure mishandled?
Will you miss Nina?
Are you happy to see Maggie return?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
