‘Everyone Enjoys a Good Love Story’

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FBI: Most Wanted Season 4 Episode 8 “Appeal.”]

FBI: Most Wanted delved into the newest member of the Fugitive Task Force, Special Agent Ray Cannon (Edwin Hodge) in its fall finale, “Appeal.”

On the way to work with Hana Gibson (Keisha Castle-Hughes), Ray noticed a woman, Cora (Caroline Harris), arguing with her landlord after he’d raised her rent by $2,000, despite her and her son Caleb (Ja’Siah Young) being model tenants for four years. She didn’t have the money, but while she had five days left on her lease, he was already showing her apartment to prospective tenants. It stuck with him, even as the Fugitive Task Force worked a case, though he wasn’t sure about letting Hana do some digging into the landlord. But armed with the knowledge that the landlord would be facing time in prison if he called friends at the IRS, Ray was able to negotiate a new lease for Cora.

And we couldn’t help but notice possible sparks between Ray and Cora as she thanked him and he threw around a football with her son. So might something happen? “Anything is possible and yes, we will see Cora and Caleb again later in the season as well,” Hodge tells TV Insider. “Everyone enjoys a good love story, right?”

Mark Schafer/CBS

After wrapping the case, Ray opened up to Hana a bit about his past, sharing about bigots like his high school counselor, crooked cops his father tried to put away but were set free due to inconsistencies in the investigation (which was code for a Black FBI agent investigating a white sergeant), and people who refused to believe he earned his spot on merit. He couldn’t forget about what was happening to Cora because he knew that it would be her son who would wear the scar from the experience. Ray was 15 when Katrina hit, and the harder pot was the gentrification of the neighborhood that caused his uncle to lose his home and new residents to regard his neighbors as interlopers.

“I’m looking forward to diving deeper into Ray’s past. We’re going to bring his family in at some point to help the audience understand even more who Ray is and why he makes the choices that he does,” Hodge reveals.

We’ve seen Ray and Hana getting to know each other off the clock as roommates, so it’s no surprise that she’s the one he spoke with about his past. “I think their relationship opened a little more when they were talking about taking the medication after she went through the trauma of being kidnapped. She tore down just enough of her wall that Ray could see the real Hana and not FBI Hana,” Hodge explains.

“They have a mutual respect for where each other is in their lives as they continue to learn from each other. Ray’s been the most open with her and at the same time, Ray gets to experience a side of Hana that maybe the team doesn’t get to see. It’s fun when we get to dive into the agents’ personal lives,” he adds.

FBI: Most Wanted, Winter Premiere, Tuesday, January 3, 10/9c, CBS