FBI’s Explosive Season 7 Finale: One Critical Injury and Two Cancellation Bombshells

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FBI Season 7, Episode 22, “A New Day” introduced a rogue terrorist group that has infiltrated the government agency and put not one, but two main characters in serious danger. But once everything had settled and the dust had cleared, it seemed like the team had actually won. They’d found the traitor, and both Jubal (Jeremy Sisto) and Isobel had survived, despite almost dying. That is, until the final few moments, which left the fate of one of them in doubt. But is Isobel leaving FBI? What happened to Alana De La Garza’s character?

Is Isobel Leaving FBI?

The episode ends with Alana De La Garza‘s Isobel Castille, who narrowly avoided being collateral damage to the phone bomb that killed ADIC Reynolds (Ben Shenkman), slurring her words and collapsing. “She doesn’t have a pulse,” Maggie tells Jubal, who yells for help before the credits roll. Considering they were in the middle of trying to catch a traitor and Isobel was faking being dead, she obviously didn’t really have time to go to a doctor after the phone bomb.

This means that, even though the team actually caught Deputy Assistant Director Simon Keane (Campbell Scott), and managed to stop the terrorists who almost killed Jubal twice and Isobel once, there’s a pretty good chance the cliffhanger for the season will result in Isobel’s death and Alana De La Garza leaving the show for good. At the very least, the episode sets it up so there’ll be some fallout from the explosion and the result to focus on the case instead of getting medical attention. But this might also just be the show trying to up the stakes going into Season 8. Cliffhangers are, after all, part of the network TV playbook. To add to the gutpunch, the cliffhanger also comes as CBS canceled two FBI spinoffs, FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International.

Let’s remember that just a few episodes ago, Episode 17, “Lineage” saw Isobel contemplating leaving the FBI and making the decision to stay because she felt like she wasn’t done. We even saw her discussing this with her husband Philip, who at time was very supportive of her decision. “You decide when your part in the work is finished,” he told her then. That’s when Isobel said she’s “not finished.”

This setup and Alana De La Garza’s comments after the finale, when she told TV Insider, “Literally, you have to tune in to see,” adding, “It is a legit cliffhanger. It was very exciting and very fun to play, unlike anything I’ve ever played before for sure. So that was fun” make it seem like we haven’t seen the last of Isobel Castille.

De La Garza invertedly explained the case against killing her off in the same interview, saying that if Isobel dies, “it would be a huge blow to the office and to Jubal and to obviously the show as well. We are all hoping that that is not the case. … I think one of the reasons our show works is because all the characters fill a necessary role within this family, and so it would be a real shame to break something that’s working so well.”

More: See all the FBI crossover episodes in order

That, of course, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There’s a sort of poetic injustice to Isobel choosing against a calm, happy life with her husband because she feels like her job isn’t done, only to die a few episodes later. It’s the kind of move other Wolf Entertainment shows have pulled. The franchise is, after all, no stranger to tragic character deaths. But it seems more likely that this is just a ploy to make us worry and tune into the Season 8 premiere. It’s just going to be a very long wait until that gets here.