FBI star Jeremy Sisto talked about his big storyline in the upcoming episode of the series, which includes a notable incident with his character, Jubal.
Season 6, Episode 12, titled “Consequences,” follows a case involving a murdered truck driver and missing drugs, one which ends up pulling Jubal closer than expected once an identified suspect turns out to be someone he knows.
FBI’s Jeremy Sisto Teases Episode 12 and His Future
In an exclusive interview with The Direct’s Russ Milheim, FBI actor Jeremy Sisto teased what lies ahead for his character in Season 6, Episode 12 as well as his future in the series.
“It was an interesting one,” teasing how the particular incident in this upcoming installment will be another important “priority [test]:”
“It was an interesting one. My character, many of his storylines, or at least one section of his personal life storylines, have been involving his son. So they’ve had to deal with priorities and how to find the line between, there’s a killer on the loose, or a possible terrorist attack, or my son’s birthday party–That’s kind of an easier one. But then my son has cancer and, to be by his side or to be on the team to try to stop something horrible from happening. I guess there are sort of priority tests where he has to decide what his priorities are between some high-stakes things.”
The episode’s story will ask the age-old question, “At what point do you honor your friendship over protocol?:”
“And this one is his godson, who hasn’t seen for years, but more importantly, it’s… an old partner. So, it also gets into that whole thin blue line kind of thing. At what point do you honor your friendship over protocol? And the kind of integrity that Jubal has for this job of bringing his life right now, he has a high bar for integrity. But he hasn’t always been like that because he used to be an alcoholic and used to have an affair with his wife; he used to have a much lower bar for what he was okay with. At that time, he made friendships with people who helped him through it.”
Jubal has a much “high[er] bar for integrity,” which comes into conflict when his old pal comes around asking for favors:
“All this stuff comes together in a way that, I think, is really interesting to play. I don’t know how much I can give away. But a good friend who’s seen Jubal in some of his worst times. And he’s basically asking him to do what he did for Jubal years before. And Jubal is in a different time of his life… He’s got this high bar for integrity. And so anyway, I think the writers really found a new question within that sort of conversation: where’s the line between personal loyalties and professional loyalties and sort of loyalty to your country and the overall good?”
The Direct then asked Sisto if he ever finds himself pushing the creatives to give his character more focus on the show, to which he admitted there “wasn’t a ton of room for that” kind of feedback given how busy showrunner Rick Eid was:
“Our showrunner Rick Eid, who I love, he just decided to leave. He’s the showrunner of our show, and ‘Law and Order’ before… and ‘Chicago PD,’ so he was a very busy man. So there wasn’t a ton of room for that.”
Sisto went on to explain how he feels procedurals need to maintain that consistency that audiences want and expect and that those “personal stories” need to be “related” to the “main focus of the episodes:”
“What I do know about procedurals [is there] are the main plots have got to be the central point, I think, that’s what the audience wants. They want that to be the main focus of the episodes. And so, the personal stories have to be related to that to some degree. Now, how closely related is a matter of opinion, I guess. And, arguably, they’ve, at times, been too close, where the plot was just too close to what was going on to the personal life. And that feels a little, maybe obvious, but there’s a line that they’re trying to find.”
“I really just feel lucky,” the actor admitted, clearly happy with the focus his character has been and is still receiving on FBI:
“I’m always, I really just feel lucky. I’m like, ‘Hey, great, I got it going!’ And then Rick has always been, you know, we’ve had a great working relationship. So if anything is felt like, if I had any ideas within that have ways to make it better or work in my body better, he’d be open to that. But yeah, I think every show is different. It depends on who that person is and who you’re working with.”
He assured that he is “just super stoked when something comes through” but noted that the situation could change when a new (still unidentified) showrunner takes the reins for Season 7 and beyond:
“More than anything, I like to learn what that person is trying to bring first, so I don’t try to contend with something because that’s not a situation you want to be in when you’re trying to fight upstream. But yeah, we’re about to go into a new showrunner, so things might be different in how they work. But at this point, now, it’s pretty much that I’m just super stoked when something comes through.”
But should fans expect this installment to set up Jubal for an exciting future storyline in the Season 6 finale?
“The final episode of the season is kind of a continuation of another character’s storyline,” Sisto admitted, and Jubal’s “stuff is with that person and related more to that story:”
“The final episode of the season is kind of a continuation of another character’s storyline. And so my stuff is with that person and related more to that story. This particular incident that Jubal is involved in and the circumstances that he’s involved in this episode don’t bleed out into the next. He kind of handles it the way he feels like he needs to. He finds the line that he’s comfortable with staying on this side of, and he deals with that. But the final episode is a continuation of another storyline. And a bad guy who is still out there and has done our team some real harm starts to get closer to the crosshairs.”
