FBI Star Missy Peregrym Speaks Out Following Shocking On-Screen Character Death

In a heartfelt revelation, Missy Peregrym, star of the popular CBS series “FBI,” addressed the audience after the show delivered an unexpected and dramatic storyline twist with an onscreen death.

On the episode aired Monday, March 16, viewers witnessed a gripping confrontation as Peregrym’s character, Maggie, confronted her first-ever arrest, serial slasher Ray DiStefano, played by Matthew Rauch. In a devastating turn, Maggie’s sister, Erin, portrayed by Adrienne Rose Bengtsson, was abducted by DiStefano. Maggie’s desperate search ended tragically when she discovered her sister’s lifeless body, having hoped against hope that Erin might still be alive.

Reflecting on the episode’s emotional weight, Peregrym shared with TV Insider her initial apprehension about the script. “I was scared to do this script. I was scared to play this part, knowing what a dark place I would have to go to just live in that moment,” she confessed. “I really cared that if I had to go that far, we did this as grounded and real and scary as possible.” She worked closely with the writers to ensure the scene’s emotional impact was as powerful as intended, opting for a raw portrayal of grief over a neat narrative resolution. “Originally, it was written with a bit more closure with Peter in the episode, but I thought, ‘How could you even talk after discovering your sister?'” she explained.

This revelation comes at a time of significant change for the “FBI” franchise. At the close of the 2024-2025 television season, CBS made headlines by announcing the cancellation of the spinoffs “FBI: International” and “FBI: Most Wanted” just before their season finales. This left fans wondering how such a decision would impact the primary series moving forward.

The FBI universe experienced a massive shakeup at the end of the 2024-2025 TV season — but how was the flagship series affected? CBS shocked fans in March after announcing that FBI spinoffs FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted were cancelled ahead of their respective season 4 and season 6 finales later that spring. While […]

“I just kind of went to work and I was like, ‘OK, I know what I have to do today, but I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I know where I need to go, but I don’t know what my body’s going to do,’” she recalled. “And we did it in one take. … But I didn’t look at Erin beforehand. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to know what I was — I didn’t know anything. And so when I turn that corner and go into the truck, that was the first time I was experiencing that moment, and it was hell.”

The actress explained why it was “really important” to tell the story, adding, “Everybody’s lost somebody, we’re experiencing this a lot. It’s obviously not going to be the same scenario, but that grief and that fear and that, oh, it’s the worst feeling in the whole world. And I didn’t want it to wrap up. I didn’t want it to feel OK in the end. It makes me cry thinking about it now because it’s real.”

FBI, which premiered in 2018, centers on the inner workings of the New York City field office criminal division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where the personnel work to ensure the safety of New York City and its citizens.

“We’re a procedural show, so we don’t get to go this deep into the character, and I’m really grateful to the writers for trusting me with this episode in the moment, as scared as I was to do it. And I’m grateful — I haven’t seen it,” Peregrym continued. “I’m grateful that it’s turned out well, but my hope is that people can really relate to Maggie in the next chapter of having to get back up and how does she make sense of her world now after this gigantic loss, not even just with Erin, but with her career? How can she trust herself to move forward and be herself and be vulnerable or do her job without feeling that anybody she loves or herself is not going to be threatened again?”

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Peregrym admitted she “didn’t ask why” Erin “didn’t survive.”

“I can’t go to a worse place for my character,” she noted. “So, kind of grateful for that. Hopefully things are looking up from here.”

Looking ahead, Peregrym made it clear that the personal loss would stay with her character.

“We do address that, obviously, and it’s still stuff that I carry with me. I’ll never be the same to a certain degree. Never. I’ll never be the same. Which again was why I was so scared to go this far with my character,” she continued. “Playing something for eight years and then all of a sudden having a loss like this, you don’t ever go back to the person you were before. You’ve got to navigate a completely different set of, I don’t even know, rules, set of understanding, trying to figure out where your place is anymore. What can you trust? And it’s terrifying.”

Peregrym concluded: “We’re not a character show where we sit around in our living room and chat about everything. I’m choosing to come to work because there’s work to do. So, it’s finding those moments to have those discussions and figure those things out, but we still have cases to solve.”

FBI airs on CBS Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.