Tonight’s new FBI dug deeper into OA’s past in the Army, and keeping things bottled up nearly hurt his relationship with Gemma. Zeeko Zaki spoke to PopCulture.com about the episode and his hopes for two specific relationships moving forward. In Season 6, Episode 11, “No One Left Behind,” the team is thrown into a political case after members of the Taliban are shot and kidnapped. Since OA served in the U.S. Army, the case hit close to home for him.
OA struggled with opening up about his past in Afghanistan with Gemma, especially after getting a call from a woman named Anna. All OA told her was that she’s the widow of a guy he served with, and despite Gemma trying to get him to open up, OA refused. After the case, OA does eventually tell her what had happened, revealing he was a POW by the Taliban and Anna’s husband was a prisoner but didn’t make it. OA promised to look after his wife and has been doing so since.
Opening up about that kind of past is certainly not easy, but Zaki thinks “it just goes to show that boundaries are a real thing in relationships.” He continued, “Especially with OA being in a relationship and being in such a sensitive job and not being able to speak on everything that he does and that he experiences, and showing that the closer that they get and the stronger their relationship gets, that the more that he does begin to open up. For me, it was just really nice to see how mature OA is and how earned becoming vulnerable with Gemma is.”
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While Comfort Clinton was only introduced as Gemma Brooks in Season 6, Episode 3, it seems like her and OA’s relationship is only growing. They took a step forward when OA opened up to her, and Zaki is “along for the ride, just like everybody else” when it comes to the couple.
“I think it’s just really great to see a strong, mature relationship on television with boundaries,” Zaki said. “I feel like personally I’m an oversharer in my real life, and getting to experience a relationship where it moves step by step, and getting to have these different lives and to still be able to have a relationship outside of work with everything that’s going on, it’s really fun, and I’m just excited to see where the writers take it.”
Since FBI has been renewed, there is still so much more to tell, especially since this story “really opened up a real big can of worms in realizing what he’s been through,” says Zeeko Zaki. “I can only imagine the realities that went down there, so going deeper into that. It’s very interesting that I only have opened up about this to my girlfriend, and my closest relationship on the show, Maggie, has no idea about this side of my past, so it’ll be fun to maybe explore that with her.”
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There are still at least three more seasons to go for FBI once Season 6 comes to an end, so there is plenty of time to dig deeper into OA’s backstory and further explore the aftermath of this episode. What that will mean for his relationships with both Gemma and Maggie is unknown, but it will be interesting to see. New episodes of FBI air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. The Season 6 finale airs on Tuesday, May 21.
