Spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of FBI: Most Wanted Season 4, called “Black Mirror.”
FBI: Most Wanted picked up where the previous episode left off when it comes to Remy’s state of mind, with “Black Mirror” proving that the agent wasn’t kidding about wanting to keep his brother’s killer behind bars. As if waiting on word of whether the man would be released from prison wasn’t stressful enough, the kidnapping of two Vermont teens escalated into a case that was incredibly dark even by Most Wanted standards. Actor Dylan McDermott spoke with CinemaBlend about “Black Mirror,” explaining why it’s his favorite episode of the season, what he ad-libbed, and more!
The kidnapping case put the task force on the hunt for a pastor and his brother, with Remy going undercover as a priest to try and get to the last surviving teen before it was too late. The brothers also weren’t just run-of-the-mill killers with a vendetta against some people who had wronged them; they had a scheme that involved forced and extremely grotesque surgical body modification.
The teenage girl was killed after an escape attempt, and Ray Cannon got to the teenage boy before he could be mutilated into a devil, but the bad guys’ intentions still make this one of the more gruesome episodes of the series. When McDermott spoke with CinemaBlend about the episode, he weighed in on how Most Wanted manages to continue creating new cases and criminals who are still horrifying, saying:
I think it's exceptional, to tell you the truth. I mean, we have a team of writers, spearheaded by David Hudgins, and I think that they find these compelling stories, and the casting on the show is terrific. The execution is so believable. I'm always shocked. But this one – you're completely right – this one may be the most horrifying yet, of all the FBIs, because of where it's actually going to and what they want to do. So I think that people are going to be shocked, and I think they're going to be like, 'What the hell?!' as I was in making it. I felt like, for me, this is my favorite episode of the season thus far.
Dylan McDermott specifically shouted out showrunner David Hudgins, who has kept the show going through massive changes like the death of Jess LaCoix and debut of Remy Scott. It’s also high praise to name this case as not just possibly the most horrifying of Most Wanted history, but all three of the FBIs.
Even though the brothers were stopped before the absolute worst could happen, it was a very close call and could have gone spectacularly wrong if the agents had been off by even a few more moments. It made for an intense episode, and I noted to the Most Wanted star that it can be a great thing when viewers can’t predict how a story will end in the current era of television, and he responded:
That's right. I totally agree, and the chase was great. The two bad guys were so good, and I think everybody was so invested in this episode.
The case was also hitting very close to home for Remy, as he desperately tried to save the two teens while the question still hung over him about whether the man convicted for killing his brother would be given his conditional release. He insisted on going undercover as a priest and gave everything he had to take the twisted pastor down. By the end, he had one message for the priest after shooting him dead: “Good riddance.”
While the priest was about as despicable of a character as any fugitive who has appeared on FBI: Most Wanted, it’s not every week that Remy will say what basically amounts to that he’s glad that somebody is dead. According to McDermott, that moment wasn’t in the original script. The actor said:
Funny enough, I'm glad you brought that up, because the great thing about Dick Wolf [and] doing Organized Crime, I was able to ad-lib my part there a great deal, and I said I really wanted to have that same freedom doing Most Wanted, so that was an ad lib line. You know, 'Good Riddance.' I think that's how Remy felt from the beginning. He says, 'I want to look this guy in the eye. I want him.' And I think that he wants to rid society of people like this. People like who killed his brother. I think that he's on a mission. This is a calling, this is a reckoning for him, and I think that's just the way he is in life.
Dylan McDermott came to FBI: Most Wanted Season 3 fresh off of his role as Richard Wheatley on Law & Order: Organized Crime, although his two different key characters in the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe are very different. Still, ad-libbing is something that the actor has been able to do as both characters.
In fact, Remy himself seemed to do some ad-libbing of his own after he insisted on going undercover, which ultimately led to him basically putting the priest through an inquisition. This happened after Barnes tried to tell him that they could pursue the priest without going undercover. McDermott shed some light on why Remy wanted to go under instead of finding a different way:
I think there's a fire in his belly. I think that he wants it. He longs for it. He needs it. People's lives are at stake here. You have these parents who are so distraught that the kids are missing. I have kids, so I try to personalize everything and put myself in other people's shoes, and what would it be like for them? And I think he's just trying to make it right, as he does most of the time. He's trying to bring peace to people's lives who are in utter turmoil. So I think sometimes he just has to get his hands dirty and do it himself. I think Remy is a character that relies on himself to get it done. And when it can't be done by anybody else, he will step in, for sure.
Remy getting his hands dirty did produce results, and the team cut it very close in saving the teenage boy from being mutilated. It probably wouldn’t be healthy for Remy if he tried to conduct cases like this on a weekly basis, but he also won’t be balancing as much personal turmoil on a weekly basis either! Of course, the arrival of a documentary filmmaker planted the seeds that the man convicted for Mikey’s murder might be innocent after all, so Remy’s story with his family may not be done.
Find out with new episodes of FBI: Most Wanted at Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS, following FBI: International (which just brought Christiane Paul back as Jaeger for an emotional case) at 9 p.m. and FBI at 8 p.m. You can also stream all three shows with a Paramount+ subscription, and look forward to the three-part crossover in the not-too-distant future.
