Spoilers ahead for Episode 12 of FBI: Most Wanted Season 5, called “Derby Day.”
The Season 5 finale of FBI: Most Wanted is quickly approaching, and all signs currently point towards Ray and Cora tying the knot before the final credits roll on the spring 2024 TV season unless something goes horribly wrong. After the events of “Derby Day,” I’m actually feeling less nervous for the future married couple and more paranoid about Hana. Her current personal storyline seems designed to give her a happy ending at Ray’s wedding this season… but it’s going just a little bit too well for comfort, if you ask me, complete with a guest star who seems too big for a straightforward character.
“Derby Day” saw the return of Ethan, played by True Blood and Law & Order: Organized Crime alum Michael Raymond-James. Hana had a bit of a meet cute (by FBI standards, anyway) with Ethan on the flight home from a case, and he was throwing up zero red flags in his scenes in the latest episode. At the start of the episode, he was playfully trying to impress Hana with his dog before getting crepes for breakfast; by the end, he was at Hana’s apartment, gamely making her crepes after they’d had to cancel their breakfast date and rolling with the arrivals of Ray and Cora.
They were even a great team for a game at the end of the episode, with Cora taking a quiet moment to encourage Hana to bring Ethan to the wedding. They certainly seem like a great match, and Hana deserves to catch a break after everything she’s been through and form a bond with somebody who doesn’t also work with her and/or need to move into her apartment ASAP.
And if this didn’t happen in the penultimate episode of the season, I might not question Ethan in the slightest, but now is the time when seeds can be planted for what will later turn into a pretty dark storyline. After all, aren’t most FBI: Most Wanted storylines pretty dark? With Ray and Cora’s romance going so well, I can’t help but be suspicious that Most Wanted seems to be setting up another successful relationship.
Plus, Michael Raymond-James is great at playing characters that are hiding secrets, if not at least slightly shady. Even his role on ABC’s Once Upon a Time – a.k.a. the show about Snow White, Prince Charming, and other fairy tale characters – involved some shadiness. He certainly wasn’t one of the heroes when he appeared elsewhere in the nine-show Dick Wolf TV universe as part of the Kosta Organization in Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 2.
His previous roles of course don’t mean that Ethan has to have a shady side, and he could definitely be the FBI: Most Wanted version of Prince Charming for Hana to at least wrap up Season 5. This just isn’t a show that has happy endings week in and week out, and Michael Raymond-James is just too recognizable for me to write his character off as just a love interest.
But either way, I’m invested! FBI: Most Wanted has been renewed for Season 6, so as long as nothing happens to Ethan in the Season 5 finale, there’s the chance for Hana to spend more time with him come fall. Find out if she does indeed bring him to Ray’s wedding with the fifth season finale on Tuesday, May 21 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS. You can also revisit his first episode of Season 5 streaming with a Paramount+ subscription now.