FBI: INTERNATIONAL Post-Mortem: Eva-Jane Willis Breaks Down Smitty’s Family Bombshell

May 7, 2024 by Marisa Roffman

“Touts” – When a former member of the Irish Republican Army turned U.S. citizen is shot while in London with his son touring youth football academies, Smitty and the Fly Team work to hunt down the people responsible as the group becomes increasingly violent. While in London, Smitty pays a visit to her mother who she believes can help the team locate an old family friend who may have a connection to the case, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, May 7 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured (L-R): Eva-Jane Willis as Europol Agent Megan “Smitty” Garretson and Pippa Haywood as Scarlett Garretson. Photo: CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Highest quality screengrab available.

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Tuesday, May 7 episode of FBI: INTERNATIONAL.]

When FBI: INTERNATIONAL’s Smitty (Eva-Jane Willis) went to her mother for help on a case involving the IRA, she discovered a bombshell: Her biological father was not Terry (Colin Mace), the man who raised her…it was old family friend Niall (Patrick Bergin). (Who, yes, was a member of the IRA.)

Here, Willis talks with Give Me My Remote about the big hour for Smitty and what this revelation will mean for her character.

This is a big episode for Smitty. What conversations did you have with the writers about what went down?
One conversation I had was the fact that in real life, I am actually Irish. I have an Irish passport and I have Irish grandparents. I was raised in London and I was actually born in South Africa and my father’s Indian, but no one would ever know any of this. [Laughs.] I’m a big cocktail of a person.

And I think when they discovered that, that might have gone into an idea about something connected with Ireland for this case. [And now] Smitty’s real father, it turns out, is Irish.

So that was only one conversation we had and I didn’t even know that they would necessarily use that for inspiration. But I think potentially that, plus, the fact that the writers always take real headlines from the news as inspiration for their episodes, that [episode writer] Wade [McIntyre] saw this headline about an IRA member who was shot in front of his son in a football pitch and they took that as the starting point for this episode. Aside from that, we didn’t really talk about much.

Now that Smitty has learned her biological father is not the man who raised her, how is she grappling with this big bombshell?
I think there’s an initial sense of betrayal—real betrayal—on behalf of her father, the man that she has known as her father her whole life. And I think, to discover that she’s been lied to her whole life, and that the very name that she carries day to day is leftover of a secret that she was told as a child is going to be something that she no doubt carries with her forever. I think it’s by the end of the episode, she’s made an empathetic decision to let her mother off the hook, to [not] blow up her family, even though she could, and to keep the secret going. But this is something that she might not be able to do forever and that she will have to carry with her on a daily basis.

We’ve seen members of the team throw themselves into work to escape their own personal issues. How much is she doing that going forward? And is she confiding in anyone as she deals with this?
I think she definitely is someone who has always used work to get away from her family, to get away from vulnerability and truth, any pain that she might feel [from] things that she’s been through growing up, or even lives that she’s had prior to joining the Fly Team. I think she has this coping mechanism of getting her head down, doing the right thing, always the right thing, and putting her head into the case.

But I think episode 11 is one of the first times we’ve seen those walls come down and she has to really, literally, take her partner’s hand and just let go. And the thing about Smitty is that she’ll let it go for a minute, and then she’ll suck it all back up and go back to work. And it’s nice to go into season 4 with that new depth, because that will inevitably have to at some point come to the surface again.

What was it like filming the quasi-confrontation with her biological father? And what is Smitty hoping to get from that relationship in the future, especially given he’s so intimately tied to her past by nature of also giving her the nickname she uses daily?
I think that revelation will [mean] every time anyone says her name now, she’s gonna think of his face and the moment that she said to him, “Do you want to be in my life?” And he said, “No.”

I think when he said no to her, he was doing it probably to keep her safe, to not endanger her, to not complicate her life or to make things worse with her parents. But, ultimately, what you had in that scene was a young girl saying, “Do you want to still be my dad?” And having to come away from that, holding her head up, knowing that the answer was, “No.”

I think that it’s painful and something she will carry. And that she will always wonder whether she’s going to see him again. And I think now that he’s going into protection that it’ll take quite a lot to uncover where he is and continue that relationship if she wants to. But I think there’s a part of her that really does.

“Touts” – When a former member of the Irish Republican Army turned U.S. citizen is shot while in London with his son touring youth football academies, Smitty and the Fly Team work to hunt down the people responsible as the group becomes increasingly violent. While in London, Smitty pays a visit to her mother who she believes can help the team locate an old family friend who may have a connection to the case, on FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesday, May 7 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the episode airs). Pictured (L-R): Patrick Bergin as Niall Walsh and Eva-Jane Willis as Europol Agent Megan “Smitty” Garretson. Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh/CBS ©2024 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What was your favorite scene to film in the hour?
I actually really loved the scene with Pippa Haywood, who plays my mother, Colin Mace, who plays the man I’ve known as my father for my whole life, and Carter Redwood as Raines. There was a moment when we were all sitting around the table, with tea and biscuits, and we were playing all of that kind of subtext of family angst—you know that thing that happens when a guest is introduced into a family dynamic. And Raines is there, trying to kind of make light of things while Smitty and her mother are glaring at each other across the table.

And it was a really fun scene to shoot, but also the greatest moment was when we stopped shooting, and Carter just looked at us all and he went, “I completely believe this.” He really believed us as a family. I think Wade did such a great job of giving us words to play with that enabled that kind of subtext, which we don’t get a lot of in this show.

And so it’s really fun to have those personal moments and those opportunities to play what’s not being said, as well as what is being said. And Colin’s lovely story about the Smitty Smarties reveal was also very fun. So yeah, that was probably my most fun moment with everyone on set during this episode.

Looking back at the season, what was your favorite episode to film?
I would have to say that this actually was my favorite episode because I got to bring FBI and all the people that I love in FBI to London, to my hometown. And I felt very proud to do that, to be able to bring this show home and be there with Patrick Bergin in front of Big Ben and Tower Bridge. I think that was a bucket list moment for me.

And not just that, but Pippa Haywood, who plays my mother, is one of my favorite actors from England. So it was a bucket list episode for me.

Beyond that, I would have to say that all of the episodes this season have just been us becoming closer and closer as a team and really enjoying working together. So this has been a good season.

FBI: INTERNATIONAL, Tuesdays, 9/8c, CBS

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