The following contains spoilers from the April 12 episode of CBS’ FBI: Most Wanted.
FBI: Most Wanted introduced the team and viewers this Tuesday to Special Agent Remy Scott, played by Dylan McDermott. And though Hana and the others did all due diligence to get the 411 for their new team leader — among other things, the 23-year-old Bureau vet/”straight shooter” did a stint on violent crime in Philly, most recently with the Fugitive Task Force – it wasn’t until the final moments of the episode that they really found out about his deal.
In the middle of McDermott’s first episode titled “Covenant,” which involved a church/cult taking advantage of a young woman named Lillie, Special Agent Scott referenced his brother’s death while talking to a POI and moved in or two eyebrows raised the ones within earshot.
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At the end of the episode, as the team sat back for an ax throw at one of those locations, Hana invited the team’s new leader to explain that part of his past. Remy openly shared that his brother Mikey, the family baby and a “bright star” on his way to a baseball scholarship in Syracuse, went to Florida for spring break when he was a senior and went missing after a night at a bar. Fort Lauderdale Police brought in a transient with a record, Larry Michael Davis, who was seen molesting Mikey outside the bar but said they “didn’t have enough to hold him”. Hours later, Mikey was found freshly stabbed in Davis’ tent.
“You screwed it up. Mikey was still alive when they let Davis go. And he went back and killed my little brother,” Remy said. “After Mikey… I… I just got real. Three months later I was at Quantico, and I’ve been with the FBI ever since.” In other words, it’s this tragedy that fuels Scott’s fight as the Fed. “For every villain I catch, I do it [Mikey]’ Remy explained.
Speaking to the press last week about his character’s tragic part, McDermott said, “I love that scene. I loved working on this and it’s great that I’ve had time to let it marinate over a few weeks of working on it.
“I do some of my best acting in my bathtub, so I had done some incredible performances that no one ever gets to see,” he added, “but I really worked at it.”
McDermott stated that he finds it “important” that Remy has a specific reason for doing what he’s doing. “It really kicks me as an actor when I have that,” he said, and he’s used that backstory a number of times in the episodes he’s directed to date. “Every show you get tired of, so I always like to find for myself those few things that I can keep going back to and brush up on for myself, and I think we’ve found that with Remy…. I know I’ve used it several times before.”
“He’s on a mission. He is on a quest and there is a dynamic to who he is
trying to find out something; his own psychology,” noted McDermott. “I love playing that
Keep this in my tool box every time I go out and do a case.”
Showrunner David Hudgins added, “We’ve already been in the writers’ room
talking about what drives this guy — “What’s the backstory here?” — and the very first time Dylan and I met, that was one of the first things we talked about.” And as for the timing of the reveal : “We didn’t want to play it as this big, heavy, dark mystery, dun-dun-dun-dun, that’s always going to be underneath,” Hudgins said. Rather, “I love the way he says at the end of this episode, ‘Look. I’ll tell you about it. I don’t mind talking about it. Here’s what happened….’ I also found the fact that he is an open book about it fresh.”
Getting to know Remy Scott, FBI: Most Wanted also gave viewers something to chew on from the scene that preceded the Mikey story. After tracking down the woman who abducted the aforementioned Lillie (tl;dr her husband, a clergyman, had raped/impregnated Lillie during an ECT session), Remy closed the motel room door behind his confused co-workers to avoid the perpetrator to confront privately.
According to Hudgins, “The intention of the writing was: He figured it out
who this woman is, what she was. She’s gotten away with reinventing and cheating her whole life, and what he says to her is, ‘I get you. I know exactly who you are and you’re full of shit. And not only that, you screwed it up. You think you’re great, but you made this one mistake,'” by escaping in a vehicle with a GPS tracker. “I thought it was a moment for Remy to really shine.”
What do you think of McDermott’s debut as Agent Scott? Rate it below!
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