FBI Season 7 Spring Premiere Review: A Night Agent Star Makes This Disaster Story Work

FBI Season 7, Episode 9, “Descent” mentions September 11 more than once as the CBS show aims to tell a similar terrorism story. It thus feels awkward, not to mention that the references make audiences expect something much bigger and more terrifying than the episode ever turns out to be. But it’s not short of ambition, and thanks to game efforts from several actors, it still feels worth the watch in the end.

“Descent” starts with the murder of a former U.S. Attorney, but quickly becomes about foreign terrorists who have gained access to an entire airline’s fleet of planes and are intent on weaponizing them. In 42 minutes, FBI can’t get to the heights that it needs to in order to deliver on that premise. Yet it has enough action to keep the plot moving forward, while John Boyd and the guest cast provide the human element that matters most of all.

FBI Season 7, Episode 9 Sets a Goal It Can’t Reach

The Episode Has Suspense, Yet Not Enough Genuine Fear

As soon as FBI Season 7, Episode 9 starts drawing parallels to 9/11 — both out loud and in its plot details — it’s walking a dangerous tightrope. Referencing a national tragedy is thorny from an emotional standpoint. But from a dramatic point of view, the script then creates a certain expectation in viewers’ heads: this has to look and feel like it could be another massive event. Just telling viewers how many airplanes are compromised, or how many people are on those airplanes, isn’t enough. “Descent” has to move with purpose and stoke genuine concern out of the audience, making them feel as desperate as the characters do. It never becomes that intense.

That’s not for lack of trying, though. One of the elements the episode gets right is putting a human face on the airplanes at risk, so they’re not just statistics. Audiences meet the pilots on Canto Airlines Flight 6730 as the plane nearly crashes into the Hudson River, and then sees them again when the terrorist leader points the aircraft toward a nuclear station. Jeremy Sisto gets scenes that could be right out of a disaster movie as Jubal tries to help them on both occasions, and feels generally powerless. Viewers know it’s going to come down to the literal last minute before Flight 6730 is rescued, since that’s what makes for the best TV, but Sisto and the actors playing the two pilots still make those moments work.

There’s also a fourth act filled with plenty of action to help smooth over some of the uneven writing. One of Jubal’s ideas is to cut the power to the area, hoping that keeps the terrorist leader from being able to access the airplanes. That means the actors get to run around in darkness, frantically searching cars and getting into one last shootout on a city street. This isn’t a perfect conclusion; it’s laughable to hear both Jubal and Scola keep urging the tech expert to move faster, as if their constantly talking at him isn’t a perpetual interruption. But “Descent” has a steady pace and at least never sits on its laurels.