FBI: MOST WANTED Boss Teases Insight Into Barnes’ Past

When a person from Barnes’ (Roxy Sternberg) past pops up on the Tuesday, January 28 episode of FBI: MOST WANTED, she opts to go back undercover—which leads to some key insight into her past (and present).

“It was always my intention when I created the characters to have at least one episode to highlight each one, especially in the first season, so that the audience can get to know each member of this FBI family,” showrunner René Balcer says. “In the case of Sheryll Barnes, when we first cast Roxy Sternberg in the role, I had mentioned that I had this backstory for her: that she had a wife who was a Columbia law professor and they had a child together. And she had this past before she went into the FBI, as a tough undercover street cop for the NYPD with a colorful background back when she was a single woman.”

“I had talked about this with Roxy, to make sure she was comfortable with that background—and she was—and [to tell her in advance] that I wanted to do an episode that would explore that,” he continues. “She was very curious and eager to delve into to her character’s past and her personal life.”

Though diving into Barnes’ past is case-specific this go-round, it does go into the deeper experience she had going undercover, like “the attachments one makes and the boundaries you have to set,” Balcer previews. “She’s very careful about observing those boundaries, both for professional and personal reason. Obviously she’s a different person now than she was when she was undercover a number of years ago; she wasn’t married back then—or have a partner—so there was a little more freedom. This is someone confronting their youthful selves and some of the things they did back then…which were not necessarily transgressions, but things you would do as a as a single person.”

“So we played with that and the tension for any undercover law enforcement: How far do you go? Can you flirt with someone, but not sleep with them? Is that okay?” he continues. “So, we had fun examining that. And there’ll be other opportunities for Barnes to juggle her personal life and her personal obligations with her professional obligation.”

Jess (Julian McMahon), who has known Barnes the longest, is “fully aware of all the complications that going undercover” could bring to his friend, but for the rest of the team “this is all new to them.”

“The team is a family, and Barnes is like the older sister,” Balcer says. “Everyone’s, on one hand, a little deferential towards her, but also definitely watching her back and being very protective of her.”

FBI: MOST WANTED, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS

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