Get to Know ‘FBI: Most Wanted’s Newest Team Member, Kristin Gaines

Ileane Rudolph November 16, 2021, 8:30 am

Alexa Davalos as Kristin Gaines, Julian McMahon as Jess LaCroix in FBI Most Wanted — Mark Schäfer/ CBS

If you’re a criminal on the run and FBI Special Agent Kristin Gaines (Alexa Davalos) is on your tail, it’s game over. The recent addition to the Fugitive Task Force — a Navy veteran and former Miami field agent with an arsenal of skills from combat readiness to interviewing and flipping witnesses — never gives up the chase.

“She is there to shake up the dynamic,” FBI: Most Wanted executive producer David Hudgins explains. “[She’s] a strong, independent thinker who isn’t afraid to express her opinion but ingratiates herself with the team by virtue of hard work and doggedness.”

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Not that she’s a natural team player. Already we’ve seen Kristin butt heads with methodical supervisor Jess LaCroix (Julian McMahon). “Jess wants her to follow the game plan; she trusts her gut and intuition,” says Davalos (above, with McMahon), a third-generation actress best known for the sci-fi alt-history drama The Man in the High Castle. (Fun fact: FBI: International lead Luke Kleintank costarred as her Nazi lover!) Now that she’s playing the first law-enforcement character of her career, “the most challenging thing has been having to rein in the emotion I know Kristin can’t have in the moment,” Davalos says. “She’s got to swallow it [to do her job]. I think it’s painful for her.”

This week, compassionate Kristin steels herself to work the case of a young lifestyle guru (Christen Sharice) murdered in the Connecticut home she shared with her NBA star husband (Romeo Brown). Off the clock, however, she lets down her guard a little with her journalist ex-husband, Nick Vargas (Migs Govea): Kristin and their teenage daughter, Ingrid (Oriana Bustamante), are now living in the same New York City apartment building as Nick and their teen son, Jack (Jay Cobian). Complicated? Yes! “She’s torn in a lot of ways,” says Davalos. Look for Kristin to chat with fellow parent Jess about it.

More of what drives the special agent will be revealed in an upcoming episode when we learn of a difficult incident from her military days. “It informs not only her work, but her divorce and personal life as well,” teases Hudgins, adding, “The deepest wounds sometimes heal the best.”

FBI: Most Wanted, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS