‘FBI: Most Wanted’ Star Shantel VanSanten Previews ‘Unresolved Hurt and Anger’ with Nina’s Family (Exclusive)

Tuesday FBI: Most Wanted will see Nina’s family come to town and Shantel VanSanten told PopCulture.com about what to expect. In ‘White Buffalo’ FBI‘s John Boyd guest stars on When Nina and Scola face family drama when Nina’s father and sister come to visit. It will not be the easiest time for them, especially since Nina does not have the best relationship with her father, and her childhood, as fans already know, was not the best in terms of family. And VanSanten couldn’t contain her joy when it came to digging deeper into Nina’s life.

“I’m so excited to share that we get to see a little further into Nina’s life, and her world continues to expand. Most searchedand we get to meet her father and her sister, which is really the only family she has besides, now Dougie and Scola,” VanSanten shared. “And we kind of dive into that relationship and start to understand Nina a little bit more because we learn about her childhood and just the way she interacts with her father.”

Videos from PopCulture.com

As for what happens when Nina’s father and sister arrive, there will be a lot to unpack. “Last season we learned that Nina’s mother died of a drug overdose when she was eight,” says the One Tree Hill alum explained. “And so there’s obviously a lot of trauma and history in her childhood, and it’s not going to be easy to reconnect.” Dougie, I think, is in the story, he’s like one, and her father still hasn’t met Dougie. And so there’s a lot of unresolved pain and anger and things that we’ll see or feelings that we’ll see bubble to the surface throughout the episode, and just seeing the family interact with each other as well.

Between Nina, Scola, Nina’s sister and her father, the dynamic will certainly be interesting, especially because it’s “almost like two completely different worlds colliding,” VanSanten said. “It kind of parallels my own interesting life of being an actress and doing this for a living, but when I go home to Minnesota to the city I’m from, a thousand people understand what I do. really do and how it works. And they just know that they get to watch the show every week, and that’s really exciting. But they are just completely different planets.”

“And we live in New York and we’re in a relationship where we’re partners, but we’re not married, but we have a child together,” she continued. “Like all these things go against what my father would want for Nina in her life, which is a much more conservative, contrived lifestyle. But Nina always paved her own path and did things the way she liked. And I think we’ll see that Nina isn’t as gentle with her father’s pitfalls as you might expect now that she’s older. In any case, she is harder on her father and really wants him to stand up for her and her family.’

Unfortunately, family drama won’t be the only thing Nina has to deal with. The episode also sees the Fugitive Task Force hunting down a pair of young activists whose simple act of defiance backfires and their plans nearly have a devastating outcome. Since the case will most likely take the team out of town, Nina will have to find some balance. Jokingly, Shantel VanSanten said it was “kind of like ‘don’t tell Scola,’ but it’s like there’s a welcome change when you have family in town and can offload.”

“Like, you’re just praying for that phone call to come in, and you’re making the family plans for when they’re coming to visit, but, ‘Oh, sorry. Work is calling, so I have to go.’ And she has one wonderful collaboration with Scola. She can pass it on to him a little bit,” she shared. “And he goes a little deeper into Nina and why she is the way she is, the way she reacts around family, and more of what her triggers are. I think that’s important for them in their relationship, and it’s also important to know that Scola is there because they have such a solid relationship. And the fact that she can lean on him, not only when they work together, but even in their personal lives, just makes me feel even more solid, which reflects their relationship and commitment to each other.

It looks like this is going to be an intense episode with a lot of emotions. While it’s always exciting to delve deeper into a character, Nina’s background is filled with trauma and painful memories, and that won’t be so easy when the family comes to town. A new episode of FBI: Most Wanted airs Tuesday, October 29 at 10pm ET on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.