FBI: MOST WANTED: David Hudgins Teases Season 6’s ‘Creative and Terrifying’ Villains
October 14, 2024 by Marisa Roffman
When FBI: MOST WANTED returns for its sixth season on Tuesday, October 15, “we’re really leaning into the MOST WANTED nature of the show,” showrunner David Hudgins tells Give Me My Remote.
“One of the things I love about the show is that we break point of view and we spend time with our villains,” he says. “The cases that we have this year, the stakes in them are high. We’ve got everything from eco-terrorists looking to blow up the CO2 pipeline; we’ve got a great bank robbery episode that is classic FBI, tons of action. We’ve got an assassin in stilettos, who’s targeting a game at a friendly soccer match at Red Bull Stadium, where we went and shot for four days; it’s fantastic.”
“We are really chasing the worst of the worst,” he continues. “You always [like to] have a good serial killer episode, and we have some great emotional episodes, too: Barnes trying to rescue a girl who’s been kidnapped and forced to work in a call center. But I think what we wanted to get into was the Fugitive Task Force is [tracking down the FBI’s] Most Wanted. These are some really…creative and terrifying, bad, bad people this year.”
Case in point: The season kicks off with the death of a detective…which quickly spirals into a bigger case.
“I was very interested in starting the season with a true, most wanted villain, a guy who was just unhinged and has lost it,” Hudgins previews. “Honestly, it was partly inspired by Charles Whitman, who was the sniper [at the University of Texas at Austin, who killed 17 people and injured dozens]; I read a lot about him. And then it obviously escalates to a much bigger threat in the community [on the show]…there’s a guy on the loose who’s extremely dangerous, and the threat he poses keeps getting bigger and bigger until the end. And he’s a significant challenge for the team, and he’s a very terrifying individual.”
It’s a different tone than the show left the characters on, after concluding season 5 with Ray’s (Edwin Hodge) wedding and the team being, well, happy. “I loved that ending, the New Orleans line dance—we wanted to end on a happy note,” Hudgins says.
But while work may be complicated, things are actually going well for the team’s romances. “Remy’s story this year, he and Abby are still together,” the showrunner teases. “They’re doing the long-distance thing. And the question for them is what’s the next step? The long-distance thing is working. But Remy has always been a guy who…work comes first for him, and so he needs to grow emotionally, if he loves this woman, to elevate her above work.”
“There’s a major move in the middle of the season that boosts the relationship in a great way,” he continues. “They take on a project at the end of the year. We’ve explored Remy’s family in the past, and we wanted to really do a story about a romance in his personal life. So he’s doing that.”
As for the newlyweds, “Ray and Cora are doing great,” Hudgins says. “His story this year is mostly about parenting Caleb and that’s a whole different topic. But in terms of them, they’re doing fine.”
Franchise-spanning couple “Nina and Scola are doing great,” too, Hudgins notes. “They’ve made their choice to be together and not get married.” (The duo will also be contending with her family coming into town in episode 3.)
“Then Barnes…Barnes’ story this year is really one of identity,” Hudgins previews. “She’s always been a mom and a wife. And she’s still a mom, but not a wife anymore. And so we wanted to have some fun with it. We wanted to see Barnes as single. And rather than have her wallowing in her own pity party, she’s going to meet some people and do some things that are going to really, I think, surprise people in a great way. And Roxy [Sternberg, who plays Barnes] is so good, and she’s excited to do it.”
That just leaves the still-new couple of Hana (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and Ethan (Michael Raymond-James). “Hannah’s still with Ethan; [he] travels a lot for work, is an Air Marshal, but things are…it’s classic Hannah, right?” Hudgins teases. “She’s nervous. She doesn’t like it when good things happen to her, almost. It’s like, ‘I can’t believe this is true. I’m scared to take the leap.’ So it’s a story about her taking the leap with Ethan. And then they have a very complicated situation that comes up that’s going to challenge both of them, midway through the season.”
Given Raymond-James’ history of playing mysterious (and frequently villainous) characters—and Hudgins’ own history working with the actor on NBC’s GAME OF SILENCE—is there more to Ethan than viewers have seen so far?
“You’re spot on,” Hudgins says with a grin. “I love Michael. Every time he does anything, you always see that twinkle, right? That’s something [where] you’re like, ‘What the f—- is this guy up to?’ So the answer to your question is yes, he has a secret that gets revealed that causes problems with Hana.”
“And it’s a juicy, messy—and at the end—very emotional story as they work through it,” he continues. “They’re great together. I always watch their dailies because when they say cut, [Castle-Hughes and Raymond-James] joke. Their chemistry is fantastic…He has a way of making Keisha laugh, which I love. So there’s a juicy story coming there with Ethan and Hana.”
FBI: MOST WANTED, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS
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