Missy Peregrym leaves the ‘FBI’ for maternity leave: how Maggie was temporarily canceled

SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read if you haven’t seen “Fear Nothing,” the April 19 episode of “FBI.”

“FBI” says goodbye, once again, to Maggie. The character, played by Missy Peregrym, made her last appearance in season 4 on Tuesday, as she is taking a break from the show for her maternity leave. The actress announced her pregnancy through social media in February.

During the episode, Maggie and OA (Zeeko Zaki) tried to track down a man using deadly sarin gas, a poison with horrific results that OA has witnessed in the past. After hunting down the man responsible and killing him, Maggie is trapped in a room where the gas has been released, causing her to pass out as OA unsuccessfully tries to get inside. Eventually, she is able to crash into the room just in time.

The episode ends with OA and Maggie in the hospital. While she is finally on the road to a full recovery, she is still not awake and OA is distraught at the thought that she might have died. In the final moments of the episode, he sits at her bedside and lets her know that he needs her and that he doesn’t want to do this job without her, and he gets a short nod, reassuring her that she’s still there.

In real life, Peregrym approached showrunner Rick Eid with the news that she’s expecting her second child. She previously took a break from the CBS show during season 2 when she welcomed her first baby; at the time, Maggie was on an undercover assignment.

“Basically, I told him, ‘Tell us what you want, what you need, and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.’ He was feeling great and he wanted to work as long as he could,” says Eid. Variety. “We had a general idea of ​​when it was going to go, so it was just a matter of finding the right episode to pair with that and the right plot to pair with that. I think the sarin gas idea seemed like an exciting and exciting way to send her off.”

She adds, “We just wanted to find a way to believably send her into the imaginary worlds we live in, and have her come back when she’s physically ready to come back.”

Eid, who is the executive producer and showrunner of the 21st season of “Law & Order” as well as an executive producer of “Chicago PD,” knows a thing or two about characters leaving the show, temporarily or forever.

“It gives you an opportunity to think about a new character, possibly a new dynamic or new associations, and to explore, either permanently or temporarily, a different dynamic or different elements. It can be exciting,” she says. “There will be a new character coming in. Let’s leave it as a surprise for now. But there is a new character to come that excites us.”

During the April 26 episode, fans will see the “fallout” of what happened to Maggie and how the team, in particular OA, is affected. “It’s a powerful episode about OA and his past as someone who was in the military and saw a lot of things,” says Eid. “In a way, he’s exploring the idea of ​​PTSD or the emotional stress that she’s under, both past and more recent.”

Additionally, viewers should also prepare for a “really emotional, really powerful” finale, involving Dubal (Jeremy Sisto) and his son.