[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FBI Season 8 Episode 8 “Ratlined.”]
When OA’s (Zeeko Zaki) new girlfriend, Gemma (Comfort Clinton), was announced, we called it doomed. Surprisingly, it lasted, though … at least, for two seasons. In the Monday, December 8, episode of FBI, the two break up, and now fans are divided.
In “Ratlined,” OA reveals to Scola (John Boyd) that he has yet to tell his girlfriend he was poisoned and hospitalized on the job. “She was on a work trip,” he offers as an explanation. “By the time she got back, I just felt like it was old news.” Scola still thinks he should have told her, pointing out how his own girlfriend, Nina (Shantel VanSanten), would have reacted. But for OA, that’s different since Nina’s also an agent and Gemma’s not. “I’m not trying to push her away; I just think that a lot of distance can be healthy sometimes,” OA says.
When OA and Gemma connect a bit later in the episode, he finds out that his girlfriend and his partner Maggie (Missy Peregrym) text. Gemma also expects him to cancel their dinner plans for that night. Maggie, listening in, offers some advice: “Relationships with this job is not an easy match, but what you two have been through together is very different. You gotta let her in.”
And so OA goes to their dinner planning to do just that, trying to tell her he’d been poisoned and hadn’t told her. He knows he’s been pushing her away since she was shot, but “I was scared that the cost of being with me was too high, and I’m sorry. But I do not want to do that anymore, Gemma. I love you,” he says. “I don’t want to shut you out.” She keeps trying to stop him, then finally reveals that there’s someone else. She cheated, emotionally, with a client she’s been spending a lot of time with and who’s been very open with her, while she’s felt distant from OA. And with that, their relationship is over.
While it did seem inevitable from the start, the longer the relationship lasted, the more it seemed like maybe it would just continue in the background. since FBI isn’t a very relationship-focused show.
Following “Ratlined,” fans were focused on the breakup in the episode’s Reddit thread. Some weren’t surprised by the breakup, while others noted just how “blindsided” OA was by the dinner, writing he “never saw that coming.”
One fan couldn’t believe that OA kept things from Gemma, given how long the two had been together. “I can’t even be mad at her for cheating. They were a terribly mismatched couple from the start,” that person wrote. Another agreed, writing, “She was really pretty but I’m not sure why they were together.”
But one viewer disagreed with that comment, noting, “This is not true as he did talk to her about his capture and torture in Afghanistan from his Ranger days. I was somewhat surprised that she hadn’t left him after the train incident but this episode kind of tied everything together. OA was a bad boy snack but she ultimately would date in her high society of rich men and trust fund babies.”
That commenter is referring to Season 6 Episode 11, “No One Left Behind.” When TV Insider spoke with Zeeko Zaki about OA opening up to Gemma, he said, “I think the reason that he opens up at the end is he comes face to face with his traumas. And when you’re triggered, and those traumas come up that you’ve packed away and thought you dealt with and things like that—the courage it takes to go all in and be triggered and be reminded, and then to use the people around you to help you heal that wound and put yourself out there in that situation… OA’s got a lot of courage. And it’s nice to see that courage doesn’t always mean jumping on a grenade. It can also mean being vulnerable and opening up to people in your life and admitting that some loads are too heavy to carry on your own.”
He continued, “At this point, especially with what he opens up to her about… I think OA has been running away from relationships and always scared to tell the whole story, and part of him does feel like he’s damaged goods, and I think this is a very telling moment and hopefully it’s honored by strengthening the relationship and not weakening it.”
A couple of people on the Reddit thread lamented what this breakup means for OA. “Can’t they let OA be happy?” one person wrote, while another said, “Felt really sorry for OA as really his new ex really made him extremely hurt and sad.”
And one fan noted that the breakup was coming once OA wasn’t “open with her about his work and seems to keep a lot to himself. I mean that’s what a serious relationship is for, to share what’s going on with each other.”
What did you think of OA and Gemma’s breakup? Let us know in the comments section below.
FBI, Mondays, 9/8c, CBS
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