FBI Season 7 Ends 2 Big Storylines With Just One-Liners & It Needs To Stop Doing This
Warning! SPOILERS ahead for FBI season 7, episode 9, "Descent."
FBIseason 7, episode 9, entitled "Descent" continues a bad habit that leads to disappointing story endings. The procedural's winter premiere could have begun demonstrating how Clay's death in FBI affects the rest of the season. However, this storyline is not addressed. Instead, the episode revolves mainly around a high-tech terrorist attack involving hacking into a plane's controls remotely to try to force it to crash. The terrorists want Congress to vote against a trade deal before they release the plane's system, but the FBI agents work hard to re-establish control and arrest the troublemakers.
This case is difficult for Scola (John Boyd) because his brother died in the September 11 attacks. A subplot involves a letter Scola doesn't want to open because it's about his brother's death. While he has Nina's (Shantel Van Santen) support, he is forced to work this case without a partner because FBI's Sydney Ortiz (Lisette Olivera) has left the New York Field Office. Syd's departure from FBI is entirely off-screen, though it is explained in an early scene.
FBI Season 7, Episode 9 Ends Two Major Stories With Boring Expositions
Syd's Off-Screen Exit Is A Continuation of A Trend That Started With Jubal
While Dick Wolf Entertainment had announced a while ago that FBI had gone in a different creative direction and wasn't going to keep Syd long-term, it wasn't clear when she would leave. Sadly, she got a disappointing FBI exit, as she didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her colleagues on-screen. Instead, Syd was working as usual during the fall finale, only to have disappeared by the winter premiere. Her absence is explained completely in dialogue, as Scola tells the other agents that Syd got a high-profile job in DC and that he will miss working with her.
The disappointment over this after-the-fact exit explanation is amplified by how Jubal's (Jeremy Sisto) suspension storyline ends. After Jubal is suspended in FBI season 7, episode 5 pending an investigation into his decision to pressure an NYPD officer to release his son from custody, he disappears for a few episodes. However, upon his return, Jubal tells Isobel that she is right and that he was out of line to use his position to protect his son from the consequences of an arrest. Jubal resumes leading the team, and there are no further consequences or mention of his suspension in FBI.
Why Showing Story Resolutions Is Better Than Expositions In FBI
These Quick Dialogue Explanations Make Stories Fizzle Out
Explanations after the fact in dialogue aren't nearly as exciting as seeing a story play out on-screen. Syd's exit is less annoying in this respect than Jubal's suspension story. Syd is simply the latest one of Scola's partners to disappear after a few episodes, and it would get tiresome if each one got a full exit scene. Nevertheless, Syd was originally supposed to be Scola's permanent new partner, so she deserved as much of an exit from FBI as Sofia Otero (Adriana Ducassi), who got a short goodbye scene at the end of the one episode she appeared in.
It's hard to continue investing in a series that continually starts interesting stories, only to abruptly end them.
When FBI writes characters or stories out without advance warning and relies on dialogue to explain what happened, it breaks the audience's trust. It's hard to continue investing in a series that continually starts interesting stories, only to abruptly end them. FBI needs to break this bad habit before its continual decision to let stories fizzle out or characters fade away ruins the procedural's high quality.
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