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Welcome to the Fugitive Task Force! FBI‘s Shantel VanSanten has officially moved over to FBI: Most Wanted as Nina Chase. Keep reading for all the details on what happened to Nina Chase on FBI and how she was written into FBI: Most Wanted.
FBI: Most Wanted is the first spin-off of Dick Wolf’s FBI. It follows special agents working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Fugitive Task Force, which tracks down and captures some of the most dangerous criminals on the FBI Most Wanted list. The series first premiered on CBS in 2020 and currently stars Dylan McDermott, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Roxy Sternberg and Edwin Hodge.
In November 2023, new broke that Shantel VanSanten, who joined the cast of FBI as Special Agent Nina Chase during Season 4, would be heading over to the flagship’s spin-off for the new season. The casting shakeup left fans with plenty of questions, including why she moved teams and how this move will effect her relationship with Stuart Scola (played by John Boyd), whom she just welcomed a son with in the Season 5 finale of FBI. We have all the answers below.
What happened to Nina Chase on FBI and why did she move to FBI: Most Wanted? Nina left maternity leave early to join the Fugitive Task Force as a replacement for Kristin Gaines (played by Alexa Davalos). Davalos was a series regular for season 3 and 4, but did not be return in Season 5.
While we still don’t know why Kristin really left, VanSanten hinted in the Season 5 premiere that her exit might have had something to do with task force leader Remy Scott (Dylan McDermott). Nina and Remy get off to a rough start when she implied this and confirmed rumors that Remy and Kristin were involved romantically.
In an interview with TV Guide ahead of the premiere, VanSanten said that she is all for the tension between Nina and her new boss. “I love tension! I love a complicated relationship where you have to communicate and earn trust,” she said. “If you think about putting five or six people in a room — maybe they all do the same job, but they all have different lives. They’re not always going to get along, they’re not always going to agree. But that’s where trust is built, relationships grow, and understanding one another on a deeper level is really important.”
With Nina’s move over to the Fugitive Task Force, fans were also concerned for their favorite FBI couple. While Scola wasn’t featured in the Season 5 premiere, Nina did mention him and VanSanten had previously assured fans that they are “definitely going to see more of Nina and Scola.” She added: “I know the writers were excited about having these mini-crossovers and being able to flesh out that relationship more.”
The last time we saw Nina and Scola together, they had just welcomed their son Douglas after a complicated birth that nearly killed both mother and son. Now, VanSanten says Nina’s focus will be on proving herself to her new team. “She’s really still feeling like she needs to prove herself to these people, that they can trust her,” she told TV Guide. “That yes, she’s a mom but she can also have a career and she can do it all. She can be trusted and she has the skill set.”
Nina definitely hits in the ground running in the Season 5 premiere and impresses her new team. In the premiere episode, she jumps right into the action and helps out with an explosive (literally) case involving a hacker. “I go to set down my box of things and the next thing you know, we’re grabbing our jackets and we’re out the door,” VanSanten said of her character’s first day on the new job.
FBI: Most Wanted airs on CBS on Tuesdays at 10/9c and streams on Paramount+.
Check out the gallery below for who the FBI cast is married to and dating in real life.
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