FBI Season 9 Premiere Recap: OA Is In Deeper Than He Thought in “Rendition”
FBI wastes absolutely no time reminding us that OA’s life got very complicated at the end of last season. The Season 9 premiere, “Rendition,” finds him still embedded with Anna Vorpe and her off-the-books strike team, while Maggie is forced to adjust to both his absence and a new partner she did not exactly request.
OA getting fired may have looked like the end of his FBI career, but it was really the beginning of a much more dangerous assignment. His dismissal gave him the cover he needed to get inside Anna’s operation, and he has spent months trying to figure out exactly how far the group’s reach extends. The problem is that the longer OA stays inside, the blurrier the lines get between playing the role and surviving it.
Meanwhile, Maggie is working with Isaiah Green, and their new partnership has some obvious growing pains. Maggie and OA spent years developing the kind of shorthand that does not magically appear because someone hands you a different partner. Isaiah has his own way of working, and Maggie is still trying to determine whether she can fully trust the man standing beside her.
Their latest investigation begins when a young traveler is found shot to death in a state park. What initially looks like a straightforward murder quickly connects to something much bigger: she witnessed the execution of someone connected to a classified government program. That trail eventually intersects with OA’s undercover operation. When Maggie and Isaiah cross paths with him in the field, Isaiah initially treats OA as a threat, resulting in a confrontation before Maggie is able to get through to her former partner. The reunion gives Maggie and OA a brief chance to reconnect, but there is no real homecoming yet. OA still has a job to finish.
Inside Anna’s group, things continue getting darker. The strike team captures a man they believe can lead them to his girlfriend, who is suspected of treason. OA manages to stop Devin from torturing him for answers, but the situation still ends horribly when the captive later dies by suicide.
OA believes what he has witnessed should finally be enough to shut Anna’s operation down. Instead, Isobel delivers the worst possible news. The strike team’s activities are protected under a Title 50 national-security exemption. In other words, OA has risked his badge, his relationships and possibly his sanity only to learn that what he has gathered still cannot bring the operation down.
Isobel tells him he has to stay undercover.
More importantly, OA now has a new target. Someone powerful is protecting Anna, and the FBI needs him to remain close enough to discover who that person is. For a man who clearly thought he could finally come home, that revelation lands hard. “Rendition” ends with OA realizing his assignment is nowhere near finished, while Maggie continues learning how to function without the partner who has been beside her for years.
Season 9 has officially turned OA’s undercover mission from a temporary detour into one of the biggest stories FBI has given him in a long time. And judging by that ending, getting himself back into the FBI may eventually be easier than getting himself out of Anna’s world.
What did you think?
Loved it
Hated it
So/So
Comments