FBI: John Boyd and Zeeko Zaki Reflect on the Evolving Team Dynamic and Scola Not Having a Partner
February 3, 2025 by Marisa Roffman

“Doubted” – When the sister of FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) profiler Sydney Ortiz (Lisette Olivera) is the victim of an attempted kidnapping and sexual assault, Sydney seeks help from Isobel and the team in tracking down a meticulous serial offender who leaves no evidence behind, on FBI, Tuesday, Nov. 12 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured (L-R): John Boyd as Special Agent Stuart Scola, Zeeko Zaki as Special Agent Omar Adom ‘OA’ Zidan, and Missy Peregrym as Special Agent Maggie Bell. Photo: Bennett Raglin/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Scola (John Boyd) is once again without a partner on CBS’ FBI.
After Scola worked for years with Tiff (Katherine Renee Kane), she left to go spend time with her sister in Georgia at the start of the season. (A fellow agent was killed under Tiff’s watch last year. Though it wasn’t her fault—and she was able to get justice for him—it still hit her hard, and she struggled with closure.)
Scola went through a rotation of partners before teaming up with Lisette Olivera, whose Sydney Ortiz was a profiler. But now, Olivera’s Ortiz is also gone and Scola is sans a regular partner again. (Emily Alabi is joining the series in a recurring capacity later this season and is expected to partner up with Scola.)
As Scola is once again on his own, “I think Scola is having to rediscover himself as an agent,” Boyd tells Give Me My Remote in the video below. “I think that that’s happening, creatively, because there’s a new showrunner. But I also think it’s happening because it needs to for him. I think there’s a metamorphosis. He’s on his own, he’s working, he’s going, he’s filling in the places that need to get filled in…doing what he’s got to do. And it’s interesting for him to be in that position. But, yeah, I think it’s making him a tougher agent.”
Though Scola is down his second partner this season, his colleagues still have a little fun at his expense. “There’s still some lightheartedness,” Boyd confirms. “Just being THE BACHELOR is kind of the running joke—speed dating, joking about who Scola’s new partner would be…[But] he’s just there to help the team. It’s really a cool position to get to be in, because it was such a partnership [with Tiff]. It was such about being this pair, and it’s been cool that they’ve kind of let it air out. And the character has gotten to kind of find himself in a way. And just developing a closer relationship to Maggie and OA…which everyone wants to do that. Like, who doesn’t want to get to be partnered up with Maggie and OA?”
Zeeko Zaki, who plays OA, echoes that the lack of a partner for Scola has shifted things for him, too. “It’s interesting because the four of us were very solid—it felt like it was truly four wheels on a car,” he says. “And now we’re a very strong tricycle, at the current moment. But it’s an ode to the agency. There’s so many different types of people, different types of agents; everyone’s super strong. Everyone brings something to the table. And it’s just fun to expand the world and just give the audience a little bit [of different storytelling], just get [to] stretch their imagination when they think of the FBI.”
“All of that emotional [feelings about the changing team] get a backseat because of how focused and dedicated we are to the cases and the jobs,” he continues. “Just because we see somebody together or a partnership for X amount of time, the reality in the world is that these things change. People get assignments [to] other places and things like that. So it’s just part of the job to be able to welcome in new people and to play kindly with strangers, and to just really show that whether it’s the four of us or the three of us, that the whole of [the] FBI is this cohesive powerhouse that we get to represent.”
FBI, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS
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