It was predictable that a kidnapped pregnant woman would have an emotional impact on the sudden new mother, Maggie.
She ended up becoming extra invested during FBI Season 6 Episode 10.
And the events of the case should definitely affect Maggie and the team.
Again, in the beginning, it was a most tenuous case for the team even to be taken on after a federal security guard got killed while essentially showing off for his disinterested online date.
The NYPD officer at the scene should have pronounced the guard a moron for his actions and not bothered the FBI.
But then they would have missed out on a case that got more interesting as it went, finishing up with that old trope, a showdown with a heavily armed radical religious cult.
At least Maggie’s state of mind at being forced into motherhood finally got tackled, rather than just being lightly alluded to as it had been since she became Ella’s guardian on FBI Season 6 Episode 6.
The thing is that everyone expects Maggie to be the way she is in everything she does: calm, confident, straightforward.
But, as only Jubal (and, to a lesser degree, Scola) can testify, those skills can only get you so far in parenting.
So, when Maggie was late because Ella was having a bad morning, it was only natural that Isobel interrogated OA about how Maggie was balancing everything.
OA was a big proponent of Maggie continuing to do what was familiar to her: Work. So, the two of them were resigned to taking a wait-and-see attitude.
They didn’t have to wait too long to see, did they?
The best thing about this episode was if you didn’t like the case’s direction, wait a minute for it to change.
At first, it appeared that the mysterious pregnant woman had been abducted by her abusive, illegal Latino baby daddy.
Then it became she was the mistress of a hedge-fund manager who had a strong financial motive to make her disappear.
Finally, the hedge-fund manager revealed that she was their surrogate and an intruder had forced her address out of him at gunpoint.
The best was yet to come, as Denise was the daughter of a con man who now headed a radical cult and had been kidnapped by one of his believers so she could be made pure again.
Better yet, a rival agency was investigating the cult but refused to invade the compound for fear of creating another Waco. Indeed, after three decades, law enforcement has to have developed a better way to handle armed cults. If not, they really should get on that.
The FBI never did come up with any actual proof that Denise was at the compound. That’s why it was surprising that the ATF agent gave tentative approval for them to poke around looking for her.
And shouldn’t that agent have been a little suspicious when Isobel had a SWAT squad in reserve outside the compound? For that matter, wouldn’t the cultists have been aware of all this activity happening nearby?
With that Midwestern look, you would have thought that Maggie and Scola could have blended in with the cultists — OA, a tall Egyptian, not a chance.
And why would someone running a secret armed compound allow any surveillance nearby? If it was drones, shouldn’t someone have been tasked with shooting those down and creating a no-fly zone?
Whatever the case, surveillance made supervising the mission easy for Tiffany onsite and Isobel back in the office.
Maggie, OA, and Scola needed all the help they could get with only 10 minutes to sweep through the compound looking for Denise. That was unrealistic, even with Tiffany’s guidance.
That went about as poorly as could be expected. Of course, someone walked in on Maggie when she was waiting with Denise for OA to return with the bolt cutters.
Maggie had no choice but to engage with the armed guard, although it would seem that a trained agent should have had an advantage over a civilian thug.
And why didn’t Maggie and OA have guns with silencers? That certainly would have helped with the stealth part of their mission.
Several unlikely things had to happen for this mission to succeed. That began with Maggie’s vest catching that bullet.
Then Tiffany picked up on the cultists’ formation quickly enough to prevent another Waco.
Then there was OA wounding the fake prophet, who was trying to escape and leave his flock to die, in a dark tunnel and getting him to call off his followers.
Once the cults heeded Mamet’s order to surrender their guns, wasn’t ATF more than willing to rush the compound after the FBI did all the heavy lifting?
There were a couple of upshots of the raid. First, Maggie was forced to contemplate her mortality, something she should have done long before. You would think almost dying from sarin gas would have taken of that.
More importantly, it got OA to change his position and push Isobel to make Maggie take some time off. It will be intriguing to see what that means for the rest of the season.
Did Isobel make the right call to have SWAT raid the compound?
Could that mission have been better thought out?
Is Maggie gone for the rest of the season or something more short-term?
Comment below.
Dale McGarrigle is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on X.