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Main Characters
Maggie Bell
Maggie Bell
"The job doesn't stop. So I don't."
Played By: Missy Peregrym
- Actor Allusion: Missy Pergrym last played a law enforcement officer in Rookie Blue, but this time she's got more LEO experience.
- Brainy Brunette
- Fair Cop: Maggie one of the many pretty FBI agents assigned to New Yrok.
- Made of Iron: In more ways than one. While she and OA both suffer a fair amount of abuse, Maggie not only is back on her feet as soon as humanly possible, but has survived some nasty events, such as being locked in a room of sarin gas and only being put into a temporary coma before making a full recovery.
- Parental Substitute: Becomes this for her friend Jess's young daughter in Season 6 after Jess suddenly passes away after surgery.
- Put on a Bus: Twice during the series, in Season 2 and Season 4, due to Peregrym's pregnancies. Both times, The Bus Came Back
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Maggie always wears her hair in a trademark ponytail during work hours and lets it down after hours.
- Workaholic: After her husband's death, she returned to work a few days later.
OA Zidan
Omar Adom "OA" Zidan
Played By: Zeeko Zaki
- Badges and Dog Tags: An ex-US Army officer with the rank of Captain prior to joining the FBI.
- Berserk Button: As a devout Muslim, stereotypical Middle Eastern Terrorists bring out his unforgiving side.Terrorist: I'm doing Allah's work.
- Also, if his sister is put in grave danger, he initiates full BIG BROTHER mode.
- Culture Clash: While partnered up with the visiting Detective Hailey Upton, the two of them get in a little argument about each other's home city, with OA noting the bad publicity of Chicago's police force and Upton snarking about New York pizza being too much "like a cracker with sauce on it." They eventually end up on good terms.
- Disappeared Dad: His father is deceased.
- In-Series Nickname: His name is shortened to "OA" by his coworkers. OA reveals in Season 6 that it was Special Agent and Intelligence Analyst Trevor Hobbs who first gave him the nickname.
- Ranger: Before his career in law enforcement, he was in the service. A graduate of the United States Military Academy, he left the Army with the rank of Captain. Legacy delves into his military career when a mission from his past returns.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Downplayed, but he still carries some baggage over an incident in Iraq: he was the Sole Survivor of his patrol being ambushed, and was forced to hide for three days in the bombed out basement of a building, at risk of being discovered all the time and fully aware the Iraqis would have killed him on sight if they caught him.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He is revealed to be afraid of tarantulas in the show's pilot.
Jubal Valentine
Jubal Valentine
Played By: Jeremy Sisto
- Amicable Exes: When his ex-wife Samantha tells him she wants to move to Westchester County with the kids, he is reluctant at first, but agrees after checking out the neighborhood.
- No Indoor Voice: He raises his voice a lot — often because he's addressing a group, but sometimes even when he doesn't really need to.
- Number Two: Second-in-command of the New York field office.
- Office Romance: Dates FBI Assistant Director Rina Trenholm.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Jubal fears becoming this when he learns that his son Tyler has been diagnosed with leukemia.
- The Alcoholic: Of the recovering variety who attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and acts as a sponsor to others in recovery. He discusses how bad it was earlier in his career when he used to drink on the job. When his son's leukemia is thought to be returning in season 5, Jubal takes a rapid trip Off the Wagon and has to recover all over again.
- Thinking Tic: He horizontally chews on a pencil while going over case clues.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: One of Jubal's main functions in the show is to feed vital information to the team out in the field via their ear pieces.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Jubal's work at the FBI often left him missing out on his teenage son Tyler's life. This formed the underlying plot in Season 5's "Prodigal Son".
Isobel Castille
Isobel Castille
Played By: Alana de la Garza
- Mama Bear: If any of her agents are in danger, she won't rest until she manages to get them out of their safely. Deconstructed in that her desire to protect them and stop the UnSub's can cause her to get erratic, making very hasty decisions, and lose what moral scruples she had left.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Isobel's desperation to arrest Vargas and stop the bombs he planted, she sends FBI agents to locate his wife and son who were in hiding, then threatens Vargas with saying they'll go after them if he doesn't surrender. Once he did, she orders her men to leave without a second thought. This leaves his wife and son defenseless when some of Vargas' enemies from a rival cartel, having taken notice of the FBI's presence, kidnap and kill them via hanging from a bridge. Vargas blames not just Isobel, but the FBI in general, for their deaths since they were only killed because Isobel exposed their location and left without care for making sure no one else found them, sending him on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge even from behind bars, causing him to begin targeting not just the FBI agents, but their families too, successfully killing Rina Trenholm. Even after they stop his men though, Jubal acknowledges that Vargas likely isn't done, and if they don't take care of him now, he'll never stop until they're all dead.
- Parental Issues: In Season 4's "Scar Tissue", Isobel is seen to have a fractious estranged relationship with her father due to his failure to show up for her mother's funeral. Isobel's father revealed that her mother had asked him not to and that he kept his promise even at the cost of damaging his relationship with Isobel. Afterwards, he and Isobel agree to go out to dinner together and repair their relationship at the end of the episode.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Isobel tends to care about results first and foremost, and when there is an UnSub at large and posing a threat, she will use any method she can to ensure that UnSub is stopped, circumstances be damned. This includes any legal loopholes she can find, exploiting any criminal informants for all they're worth, and going straight for lethal force via snipers if possible. Anyone who refuses to play ball she either invokes chain of command on or threatens with jail time.
- You Said You Would Let Them Go: Isobel has a nasty habit of using criminal informants for whatever she can, typically with the promise that it's only "one thing" and that'll be the end of it, only to routinely back out of it while invoking Screw the Rules, I Make Them!. Anyone who gets pushed too far or refuses to help out of fear for their life she has imprisoned without a second thought, which gets contrasted by other agents like OA feeling remorse for having to enforce her orders.
Stuart Scola
Stuart Scola
Played By: John Boyd
- Action Dad: By the sixth season, Stuart's been trying to do his best to juggle his FBI work while trying to be a father.
- Casting Gag: This isn't the first time John Boyd portrayed an FBI agent who has a complicated history with the financial sector.
- Dark and Troubled Past: His brother died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He initially claims he was lying, but later admits to Kristen that he wasn't.
- Good with Numbers: He used to work on Wall Street, which comes in handy when the team investigates a murder with heavy connections to the stock market.
- Office Romance: His relationship with fellow FBI Agent Nina Chase comes under this category.
- Official Couple: Previously slept with Nina Chase and they become involved again in season 5 before her departure.
- Secretly Wealthy: He held on to a good amount of cash from when he worked in the stock market, but chooses not to speak of it.
Tiffany Wallace
Tiffany Wallace
Played By: Katherine Renee Turner
- Fair Cop: Spent six years with the New York Police Department before becoming an FBI Agent.
- My Greatest Failure: While working as a patrol officer, Tiffany was forced to shoot a mentally-unstable man in self-defense. Years later, the shooting would come back to haunt her when she encounters the man's son Jamal who was sent into foster care and ended up with a gang of bank robbers.Jamal: "Wish you could ever just start the day all over again and pick completely different choices?"Tiffany: "Yeah. More than you'll ever know."
Former Main Characters
Dana Mosier
Dana Mosier
Played By: Sela Ward
- Benevolent Boss: She looks out for her subordinates.
- Da Chief
- The Profiler: She was one in her previous role, and often gets to use her old skills.
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- Second Episode Substitute: She replaces the previous boss after the pilot.
Kristen Chazal
Kristen Chazal
Played By: Ebonée Noel
- Rank Up: Works as a technical analyst in season 1 before becoming a field agent in season 2.
- Put on a Bus: It is revealed in the premier episode of season 3 that Kristen has moved to Texas and joined the FBI field office there.
- Slashed Throat: Suffers one in season 2 when making an arrest though eventually makes a full recovery.
- The Smart Girl: The technical type, she's one of the FBI's resident Techno Wizards.
Nina Chase
Nina Chase
Played By: Shantel VanSanten
- Action Mom: Goes out into the field while pregnant. Later on, she's assigned to work in the Fugitive Task Force.
- New Old Flame: Nina and Stuart had a one-night stand which he failed to follow-up on. When they reunited, they resumed their relationship and ended up conceiving a child together.
- Office Romance: With Stuart Scola.
- Official Couple: With Stuart Scola.
- Put on a Bus: Became pregnant by Scola, leading to her first being transferred to the White Collar crimes division of the FBI and then to the Fugitive Task Force, joining the main team on spin-off show FBI: Most Wanted
