[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for FBI: Most Wanted Season 5 Episode 2 “Footsteps.”]
Ray Cannon (Edwin Hodge) has to find it in himself to be both a worried son and an FBI agent on the clock in the latest FBI: Most Wanted episode, when his father (Steven Williams) is targeted.
In “Footsteps,” the Fugitive Task Force is after a father and daughter going after the law enforcement officials for the roles they played in separating them after he was detained (and tortured, by an NYPD Ghost Squad, specializing in taking down terrorists after 9/11) for his plans to use a chemical weapon to target New York’s water supply. Ray’s father, Ray Cannon Senior, was assigned to the case, and he plays the same recording the NYPD officers did for the father, of his daughter as a child, screaming and crying for him, as proof the CIA had her.
Senior himself did nothing wrong, though the father and daughter to bring a bomb to his house. Fortunately, Senior is able to get through to the father, and the bombers surrender. After, Senior admits to Ray that he hadn’t told him about the past case because he wants him to be proud of him. Ray assures him he is and points out that while Senior may feel like he could’ve done something, he was one of the first Black agents in New Orleans and had a family to support. He may have done some things wrong, but it was for the right reason.
For Hodge, Williams’ energy “was easy to work off of. [That scene] where I’m just sitting down with him and talking is probably one of the easiest scenes to kind of just jive with somebody,” he tells TV Insider. “It felt natural.”
While what he learned doesn’t change how Ray looks at his father, Hodge agrees that it does have to allow the two to talk about the hard stuff they might not want the other person to know about, such as what happened all those years ago. “This is part of their relationship now. Ray’s father spent a lot of years keeping him away from this, not wanting him to be involved with anything that he’s had to deal with. Cannon Sr. really did have to shape the way Junior moved through this world,” he says. “And Ray always looked at his father with those golden halo eyes. He could do no wrong.”
Hodge notes that’s what it’s important is “we never lost the respect. We never lost that foundation that we built to even get us to this point. So I think that was the blessing in how we played out the scenario in that scene.”
The good news: We’ll see more of Ray Cannon Sr. this season, Hodge shares. “I’m actually excited about it because I don’t know exactly how he shows up, but he will be around for a while.”
Senior also gives Ray some advice about his life off the clock: Live your life without any regrets. If he thinks Cora’s (Caroline Harris) the one, he shouldn’t let her slip away. And the episode does end with Ray and Cora, while out bowling with his father and her son, both “all in” on their relationship. Does that mean we should be thinking about wedding bells being in their future?
“I’m sure it’s going to come up,” says Hodge. “There’s been a lot of rumors going around as far as various characters in general for this season and where they’re going to end up going. But yeah, I feel with the way the story is going right now, it could easily lead to marriage. It could easily lead into a longstanding relationship or something might happen, who knows. But as of right now, the ship’s going forward. I know that Cora is not going anywhere. I know Caleb’s not going anywhere. I think that it is a huge part of who Ray is now, and we need to play up on that. But yeah, you might hear some bells in the future.”
Also coming up for Ray, he’s “standing on his own. He’s going to go through another transition, and the audience will be on the ride for that,” Hodge teases.
FBI: Most Wanted, Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
