Did their dodging of death at the hands of train hijackers derail OA and Gemma’s year-plus relationship?
In the 14th episode of FBI Season 7, titled “Hitched,” Special Agent Omar Adom “OA” Zidan (played by original cast member Zeeko Zaki) and girlfriend Gemma Brooks (Billions‘ Comfort Clinton) were heading to Niagara Falls for a romantic, “unplugged” getaway when their train was hijacked and rerouted.
OA, without his gun, tried to play cool things and pretended to just be a lawyer. But when a fellow passenger ignored OA’s advice and tried to play hero, OA joined in the fight, which wound up putting a hijacker’s bullet into Gemma’s belly.
As the hijackers in their passenger car grew disenfranchised by their leader’s agenda, OA was able to convince once of them (played by Magnum P.I. alum Stephen Hill) to help in the stopping of bleeding and dressing of Gemma’s wound.
The FBI team did heir best to avert catastrophe, getting a “failsafe” placed on the track ahead that’d keep the train from plowing into its target, a company with vats of toxic chemicals on-site. But if the train hits that clamp, the derailment will jeopardize the loves of those on the board. OA moved Gemma and the others to another car, then dangled himself outside between the fast-moving cars to juuuust barely flip the switch that decoupled them. After the lead hijacker took her life, OA moved into the driver’s compartment and, with help from the team back home, applied the brakes in such a way to bring the train to a stop mere feet from the failsafe.
That night, OA sat at Gemma’s hospital bedside as she came to, only to nudge her to rest. He then confided in an arrival Maggie all of the second-guessing he was doing, about what he might have done differently to spare Gemma the gunshot: “I was supposed to protect her.”
Regardless of OA’s anxiety, FBI original cast member Zeeko Zaki told TVLine of OA and Gemma’s status, “I feel like we definitely leave it off in a great place.” In fact, “I’m hoping that this experience makes us stronger, though I think it could go a lot of different ways. We’ll see what the writers are brewing.”
Given that the episode was titled “Hitched” and OA and Gemma were en route to the traditionally romantically Niagara Falls, we had to ask Zaki: Did he, upon first getting wind of this episode, wonder if OA would be revealed to have a certain kind of very special, sparkly ring in his pocket?
Print a word, nah.
“There’s definitely some room to imagine that,” he conceded, “but I really feel that there’s a lot more that Gemma and I can build before we get to that point. We’ll see if this scares her off, we’ll see if this makes us stronger…. That’s not up to me, but I’m down and very excited to play both.”
