‘FBI’: Zeeko Zaki Breaks Down ‘Intense Emotional Shift’ at End of Season 9 Premiere

OA (Zeeko Zaki) thought his days undercover were almost done right before the final scene of the FBI Season 9 premiere. But then he meets with Isobel (Alana De La Garza), who gives him some bad news. Warning: Spoilers for the FBI Season 9 premiere ahead!

OA begins the season still undercover with Anna (Claire Coffee) and her shady unit in an attempt to take them down. In the process, he reunites with Maggie (Missy Peregrym) in the field — he fights her new partner, Isaiah (Roland Buck III), at first — then later for a much-needed hug. But while OA’s able to stop Devin from torturing the strike team’s target to get him to give up the location of his girlfriend, who’s really the one guilty of treason, the former FBI agent isn’t able to predict the target hanging himself. When he brings what went down to Isobel, however, she tells him it’s not enough. The team’s actions are sanctioned under a Title 50 national security exemption. He needs to stay under and get close enough to Anna that he can identify who’s shielding her.

Below, Zeeko Zaki breaks down the premiere and teases what’s ahead. (Plus, read what showrunner Mike Weiss had to say about the episode here.)

Poor OA. I mean, I feel so bad for the guy because when he’s going to meet Isobel at the end, he thinks the assignment is over. There must be a bit of this relief in him when he’s going to that meeting, right?

Zeeko Zaki: Yes.

Because he needs it to be done at that point, it feels like, because he’s probably thinking, if what I just saw is not enough, what else am I going to have to see? What am I going to have to do? Things like that, right? Is that where his mindset is?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So, going into this, had he truly thought that he could get Cameron out of there alive, or was he just fooling himself?

No, I think he definitely did believe he could help him, especially, I mean, there’s a proper cadence to torture and there’s a proper cadence to getting information and he didn’t give us the information, so there was no thought in my mind they would have killed him and I didn’t think he was going to take his own life for sure. So it was definitely pretty brutal and not the funnest to play.

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But yeah, when I go in and think it’s over and plead with Isobel and just realize — that moment, it’s like when you go and you tattle on somebody, then you have to go back and sit with them and it’s very classic, you burnt the whole house down and you left and now you got to go back in. So it’s a very intense emotional shift or emotional beat there that we got to play. That was really fun.

How is being with the strike team affecting OA? Because it’s not just a different unit he’s working with. He has little contact with the people he trusts. So he really is just relying on himself the entire time after being used to having a team, right?

Yeah. The strike team stuff was really fun to play. Doing anything different is always fun. And OA coming from his military background and maybe never feeling truly a part of a team and always feeling a little bit alone has prepared him for this kind of stuff. I think he’s OK with it, and he’s definitely up for the task, but yeah, it’s definitely something new, and you can kind of feel it that his missing piece isn’t there.

Going into this, what had he expected this assignment to be, and how is it different than what it is?

I think he expected it to be easier. I think he expected to be able to gather enough information on [Anna] and to be able to take her down much quicker. I have a feeling the audience is going to expect the same thing. So it’s a really fun reveal that we have a few episodes in that mode.

Especially because I feel like yes, it’s the Anna of it, but it’s also the Devin of it because it feels like OA and Devin are the ones who are really clashing, and now Isobel wants OA to get close to Anna; it feels like that’s going to put him in direct opposition with Devin, right?

Yes. And it’s very fun. Devin, that was really fun to play because we’re together for the first three episodes, and with all of this, with all of this inner bureau, inner organizational crime, all of us that are in the FBI and the CIA and the military, we all started with such good intentions to getting into this world and then the bad eggs become poisoned by it. So I think there’s always a piece of OA that knows that there’s a good in everyone he’s dealing with, but it’s gone too far.

Yeah, and it feels like there’s not much good in Devin…

Well, it’s kind of that guy on the sports team. We never really got to see it, but I know there’s a soft spot in there somewhere.

Do you think if anyone could have, it would’ve been OA to bring it out of him?

Yeah, we pitched it and you’ll see in Episode 3, there’s some buddy-buddy stuff that, is it real? Is it part of the ruse? You’ll never know.

How does OA feel about having moments like that then? It must be tricky for him because he went in thinking, “I’m taking down this team,” but then to have moments where it’s like, maybe they’re not completely bad…

Right. And I think that’s the fun part to play where the audience isn’t going to really know, is he pretending to enjoy this or enjoying this? I think Stockholm syndrome’s a real thing, so anybody in a situation that they don’t like for long enough, I think you start to like. So it’s definitely a fun note to play, and I can’t wait to watch the episodes and see how it’s all put together.

Bennett Raglin/CBS

But speaking of going to real happy moments, the OA and Maggie reunion –

Yeah, it was good.

The moment at the water tower was so good. It feels like that comes just as he really needed it at that point to have Maggie back in his life. What does that mean to him?

Yeah. To me, that whole feeling, when I was a kid, I would go to Egypt, and I would go stay with family that I wasn’t too familiar with, and I would feel homesick and just miss anybody that’s recognizable. And then I would get to go and see my cousins from the States that were also in Egypt and that feeling of just something I’m familiar with. Now I look back, and I regret the moments of not wanting to be — You want to spend as much time with family as possible, but it was such a real feeling of being forced to… your people are so close, but you can’t be with them. And so getting reunited with Maggie is just such a fun, real sort of thing to play.

But it feels like any reunions they have going forward while he’s still on the cover, it’s going to be a little bit of a different tone of the mindset that he’s in because at the meeting at the end of the episode with Isobel where he thought he was out, but he has to go deeper in. So is that going to color any interactions between OA and Maggie that we see while he’s still undercover?

I think with OA and Maggie, me having to go back in is just as bad news for me as it is for her. And even though we are separate, you’ll see in that kind of dynamic that we’re still in this together.

I can’t wait to see OA and ADIC Green (Curtiss Cook) scenes, considering he fired OA, not knowing this is all a cover. Will we see any of that going forward?

That’s true. You’ll see. It’s been so long since that moment, and it’s really fun to — there’s a beat not in Episode 1, but in the next two episodes, you get to see the rest of the team get brought in on it, and it’s kind of fun to see everybody believe in what my mission is just as much as I do, even though it’s been sort of a secret.

It feels like there were moments in the premiere that Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) is clocking that there’s stuff that Isobel’s not telling him. But who else are we going to see OA with then while he’s still undercover from the team, can you say?

It’s a bit of a reveal, so I’ll leave it at that, but you’ll definitely get some more character interactions with OA, just one or two, nothing crazy.

What’s OA going to be doing as he has to get closer to Anna to identify who’s shielding her? What does this mean? What’s different about what he’s doing undercover going forward?

We see in Episode 2 a strategy or we plant a seed that then we get to play out in Episode 3. But yeah, I think the first round was, exist with them and see what I can learn, and now it’s go in and get the information I need and go and get what you need. I think there is a shift that you’ll feel, and it’s really cool how we do it. I hope it plays.

What is OA and Anna’s dynamic like?

I think he’s very good at serving people, and she is, for lack of a better word, mama bear for the strike team, so OA knows exactly how to cozy up to her in the same way that he does with Isobel. It’s fun to get to play that because the audience and we know that that’s all bulls**t.

Bennett Raglin/CBS

Is there any more stuff coming up between OA and Maggie’s new partner, Isaiah, besides the two of them punching each other?

That’s also a really fun reveal when we hash it out. I really like this show because, in the best way possible, we show that if FBI is on your chest, then we’re on the same team, and there’s mistakes here and there. And I didn’t realize it was Maggie’s partner in the fight scene in the beginning of the episode, but we don’t take anything personal, which is nice. And he’s great, Roland, awesome actor, awesome guy. I’m really excited that he got to come and play with us for a little bit.

But it does seem like he may have clocked Maggie in OA’s conversation, and then she brushes it off in the premiere. But is that something that’s going to be a concern going forward? Or since you said about them hashing it out, does that mean he’s brought in and he’s someone that OA can trust?

Yeah, it definitely is a story point, and we’ll see how that plays out.

Last season introduced Zara (Pardis Saremi) as a new love interest for OA. It seems like things were just going to start going well, and then he takes his undercover assignment. Not the best timing for that. Is that something that’s going to continue this season? Can it, given this assignment? Is that at all anywhere in OA’s head right now?

Yes, it definitely does continue. We get to work together, so everyone will get to see Zara in Episode 4. It’s really fun, and we get to have a really cool moment that I don’t get to do on the show a lot: bedroom scenes. She’s great, and I hope it continues, and I think it will, but that’s not up to me.

So it sounds like this romance will work out for OA?

It’s working out so far. So far, so good.

Why do you think that is?

We sort of combined the two things. It’s like someone that understands your career or someone that understands your culture, and with her, it’s career and culture, and I think those are two strong enough points for us to build off of.

I was surprised that OA’s last relationship lasted as long as it did, to be honest.

Hey, me too. I’ll tell you what.

It kind of kept feeling like there were moments that could have broken them up, and they just kept moving past it.

Yeah, it’s interesting what everyone gets to see versus what’s written versus what’s shot, there were a lot. There was a full storyline with my ex that was totally cut out of Season, maybe I want to say 6. But yeah, it is what it is.

FBI, Mondays, 8/7c, CBS