FBI doesn’t go home with the agents or explore their lives outside of work much, but it’s doing so in a significant way—stretching slowly over multiple episodes and culminating in the latest—with Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) in Season 6. And that included a Rookie Blue reunion for Peregrym, with Charlotte Sullivan coming in to play her character’s friend and former colleague, Jessica Blake, a single mother.
“I was so excited that Charlotte said yes to doing the show. She always just brings such a great energy. She’s so talented, and it just was so nice to have someone that I know that I could really genuinely just feel that with,” Peregrym tells TV Insider. “We have such small arcs on this show, so to be able to have somebody that I already had a connection with made it really fun to go to work. And it was great to play something outside of work for me, for Maggie and to care about somebody else.”
But in the latest episode, Jessica was rushed to the hospital, where she got some bad news: She wasn’t exposed to ricin during the investigation, but the doctors did find a mild aneurysm. While she had exploratory surgery, she had to name an emergency contact and temporary guardian for her daughter, Ella. “Whatever you need,” Maggie told her. But then Jessica died during surgery, and now, Ella remains in Maggie’s care.
“What I was really excited about was that there was a space for Maggie to explore motherhood and what it means to care deeply for somebody outside of work. When we started the show, I had a husband, but he had already passed,” explains Peregrym. “And so I was really looking for something to do where there was that vulnerability for Maggie.”
Looking ahead, “there’s going to be a bit of conflict in terms of legal issues and how far can I take this. I think there’s going to be a moral dilemma of the fact that I’m in a dangerous job and I could lose my life, and is it right to put a little child through that a second time?” she continues. “But I love her and I’ve known her and I want to take care of her. My heart is with her, so I’m excited to see where that goes.”
Maggie will lean on her partner, OA (Zeeko Zaki), “a little bit. There are conversations,” Peregrym says. “He’s my guy that I go through my life with if anything’s going on and I’m involved in his relationships as well, with him and Gemma, and voice my concerns naturally.”
But “the team is careful,” she notes. “They’re worried about me also just losing my friend and how I’m going to feel about that and how do I go to work and continue this? It’s such a huge adjustment.”
Like us, Peregrym has a fondness for Rookie Blue. “We still miss that show so much, just the friendships that we had. We still all care about each other so much, and so anytime that we can work together again, it’s just so exciting and takes us back to a really wonderful time in our lives. We were in our 20s, and we didn’t have families yet, not really. Some people like Matt Gordon obviously had a family,” she laughs. “But he was like our leader as a mature person and was so gracious with us while we were just [having fun] around Toronto, and it was just a very special time.”
FBI, Tuesdays, 8/7c, CBS