FBI's Jeremy Sisto Talks Tyler's Fate, Vigilante Justice, And Seeing Sides Of Jubal That Are 'Hard To Watch'

In the fall finale of "FBI," a horrifying terrorist event in New York City becomes personal when Jubal's son Tyler gets caught up in the madness. As a result, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge takes his grief and anger to the streets where things get wildly out of control.

Monday's two-hour block begins with the discovery of three dead sex workers, but rapidly spirals into something much worse when the FBI discovers the murderer has a much larger plan in place. After an accelerationist group attacks the city's power grid (among other things), shutting down much of the city's points of communication, Jubal learns that Tyler is in the midst of a bombing site and falls victim to an explosion that rocks the city's communication hub. After Tyler is rushed to the hospital, Jubal takes things into his own hands, running straight into the city's chaos after ignoring Isobel's orders to stay put with his family. As things usually go on "FBI," things get pretty dicey before the team is able to swoop in and save the day. 

Below, Jeremy Sisto talks to TVLine about Jubal's very-scary two-hour ordeal, whether Tyler (who ultimately survived the blast) will be OK, and why Jubal disobeyed orders and went rogue.

TVLINE | How does this attack by the group 3rd Testament differ from others the FBI has dealt with in the past?
JEREMY SISTO | On our show, we've dealt with so many different versions of terroristic behavior. People trying to ruin things for individuals or for the entire population, and yeah, this is one of the more extremist groups. More anarchistic. It's an accelerationist group that believes the world's gotten so rotten that they need to reset it, and so we do what we have to do to get ahead of it. But within the plans are to disrupt internet and cell service, which is frustrating for any of us, even if we're not trying to save the world. Their plan is elaborate and the reason it takes two hours is because there's a lot of losses. We don't win throughout. The FBI is fallible, like each of us, and so they squeak by in this one, but it's an exciting ride and it's emotional for Jubal for personal involvements. There's always an element to an agent's experience, whenever there's an active threat, which is thinking about where your loved ones, your family, and your friends are and hoping they're not in the wrong place at the wrong time. During this horrible day, Jubal's son Tyler decides he is going to go to the city for the day with his girlfriend, and so it's bad timing for Jubal, and you see some sides of him in this episode that are hard to watch.

TVLINE | Let's talk about Tyler, who gets caught up in an explosion at the end of Part 1. What's Jubal mentally going through when he's searching the rubble for his son?
As you get when you're a parent and you lose your kid for a second, you start to become very short-sighted. As he's running into the flames, into the smoke, and running past people covered in dust who are scurrying away, he isn't even able to acknowledge the hugeness of what's going on around him because he's so afraid of what could be with his son. Then when he finds his son there in the worst of all scenarios that he was imagining, trauma does a weird thing. It starts to make you believe that you created it yourself, and so he's gonna have some real work to do to make sure he stays on track, psychologically, after this, as all law enforcement people do. It's not easy to have these situations and then just move on with your life.

TVLINE | Jubal goes a bit rogue after his son is brought to the hospital. Part 2 gave me some Jack Bauer, "24" vibes. Can you tell me a bit about Jubal's motivations and actions in the second half? He's motivated by his ex-wife, who is not a real vengeance type of character, but she tells him to channel that emotion into finding these guys. Human beings are susceptible to giving in to that emotion that fuels things like vigilante justice, this self-righteous pride, and it really does go against who Jubal is. He has dedicated his life to work within the system that he believes in and the system doesn't always get the perfect result. But if you believe in vigilante justice, you're probably not looking at the facts because most often vigilante justice doesn't work. It falls apart in so many different ways, and in this particular way, he doesn't get anything out of this guy for his extreme behavior. He figures something out because of something the guy accidentally says. We've learned as a society many times that that kind of behavior is not good to encourage in our society. But that said, it's super fun to watch on TV and in the movies.

TVLINE | Jubal tortures one of the bad guys for information, but Maggie and OA burst in and stop him. What would Jubal have been capable of if they hadn't interrupted?
It's hard to know. I'd like to think that he'd come to his senses, but that'd be pretty embarrassing too, because he's like, "I'm gonna cut you," and it didn't seem like the guy was gonna back down at all. In an earlier draft, it actually played like that, which was like, "I'm gonna cut you," and he's like, "Fine, do it," and then [Jubal] was like, "I'm not gonna do it because I'm not that kind of person." But the way we ended up doing it, you don't know what would have happened. Fortunately, I like to think he's not gonna go that far. The pushing on the wound, that was something that wasn't in the script. That was already quite far. And it's clear that he wasn't going to get the information he wanted from that, so I have a feeling he would've switched his ways if he really felt like the guy was just not going to budge, or maybe he would've gone that way and gotten the information like that. It's not to say that sometimes the extremes don't have a positive short-term effect, but ultimately for our society, it's a net loss, and that's something he believes as well.

TVLINE | He ultimately goes after the Big Bad of the arc, but once he deals with the threat, he hesitates when he sees Baker McCaffrey lying near the gas canisters. Was he considering leaving the guy there to die?
No, I think he's caught up in this vigilante version of things, and so for a moment, he loses himself, but I think that's the moment in the arc where he comes back around and remembers who he is. He's not somebody who's trying to act as judge and jury. He's a crime fighter within the system, and that's how he prefers it.

TVLINE | Tyler wakes up by the end of Part 2, but is Tyler's health from this event something that will be a factor next year?
I'm not sure, but I think he's gonna be all right. I think the bigger concern is if this is something he really wants to try to pursue, to follow his [dad's] footsteps. What does that look like? That's not an easy path to take for a parent, but you want to be supportive of your kid and make sure they feel supported. I think that's more of an element that will come to a head at some point, at least that's been a topic of discussion. Maybe after this experience, Tyler's going to be like, "Actually, I didn't love that, so no, I'm not going to be put myself in that place again." His health is gonna be OK.