[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FBI: International Season 4 Episode 7 “Keen as a Bean.”]
Wes Mitchell (Jesse Lee Soffer) gets a visit from an old friend and fellow agent, Tyler Booth (Jay Hayden), in the latest FBI: International—and he’s keeping him around to return a favor.
A case brings Tyler to Budapest: He’s after an American on the “Most Wanted” list who’s been hiding out in Russia, and he’s using the man’s ex-wife to do it. Ed is a former cop and traitor who has been leaning on cops to get reports and strong-arming them with photos and videos (sometimes stolen, sometimes deepfakes); there have been suicides as a result. He exposed an undercover DEA agent, who was found dead four hours later. His ex-wife, Kelsey, is his blind spot. But it doesn’t feel like she’s 100 percent on board.
As we learn when the friends meet up, Tyler has a daughter in college. He also gets on Wes’ case about waiting for the perfect woman when he hears his relationship ended. As for Wes and Tyler’s history, the details of their work is classified, the others learn when they look into Tyler. He did get the worst of it and his career has been in neutral since. Wes is hoping that if this case breaks the right way that Tyler could end up GS-14 like him; he has Amanda (Christina Wolfe) make sure his friend is CC’ed on all comms with HQ going forward because the more visibility for him, the better.
Nelly Kiss/CBS
Vo (Vinessa Vidotto) pulls Wes aside at one point to ask who’s calling the shots, and he knows what she’s really asking. A raid went sideways and the bureau wanted a fall guy, Wes reveals. Tyler made it easy on them. So why does it seem like Wes feels like he owes him, she wonders. When he was clearing the compound, someone got the drop on him, and Tyler had his back. Without him, he wouldn’t be there right now. But as Vo sees it, Tyler just did his job.
Early on, it doesn’t look like the case is going to go their way, mainly because Kelsey is too nervous and her anxiety pills were confiscated at the airport. Tyler snaps at her to shake it off, but Wes intervenes and pulls him aside. Tyler insists it’s his case, but Wes does outrank him. He says he owes him because of what they’ve been through, but he has to stand down. Wes is able to get Kelsey on board, but Ed changes up their meet and the Fly Team’s leader convinces Smitty (Eva-Jane Willis) to go with his plan to not alert local authorities; they get in trouble, but Wes and Smitty are able to smooth it over.
It doesn’t take long for Ed to realize the Fly Team and Tyler are after him—and then he makes it personal. He sends a text to Tyler warning, “Your daughter shouldn’t keep certain photos in the cloud. Someone like me might find them.” If they don’t stop, he’ll leak photos of his daughter, Charlotte. That means they can’t risk taking a shot at Ed and missing.
The team tries to flip the script on Ed, with Kelsey on board after Tyler tells her he’s going after his daughter … only for them to realize she’s been playing them. She willingly gets in the car with her ex-husband. But what she doesn’t know is Tyler was the one who pulled her meds at the airport, to add a tracker in the new bottle. They get both Ed and Kelsey in custody, but they need his password to kill his bot farm—or all his blackmail threats will go wide in two hours, including Charlotte’s photos. This is when Kelsey does the right thing, pleading with Ed to give over the password in exchange for her not spending 50 years of her life in prison as his accomplice. Charlotte’s photos are secure.
Thanks to Wes, Tyler gets credit for the work on the case with the deputy director, and the topic of his next assignment came up. He’s on temporary duty for 90 days with the Fly Team until he figures it out. When he likens it to a “break,” Wes makes sure he knows it’s not one. He believes in him, and it’s his shot to turn his whole career around. He saved Wes, and now he can return the favor, but he needs Tyler to meet him halfway. Tyler’s in.
What do you think of Tyler Booth? Let us know in the comments section below.
FBI: International, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS