FBI Most Wished: Poisonous Conduct – Sufferer Mentality

This week’s providing from FBI: Most Wished makes an attempt to weave a darkish story of a hospital orderly turned mass assassin. His pathology? A extreme sufferer mentality, fueled by a lifetime of perceived slights.

Whereas the premise had potential, the execution was clumsy. The story by no means dipped under the floor to discover the humanity of this character, making it exhausting to take severely. Even making him the daddy of a loving adolescent son didn’t redeem him. Let’s assessment.

The opening hospital scene turned out to be the episode’s excessive level, capturing the chaos of an emergency room in a method that rivals the perfect medical dramas. A pregnant girl bleeds from her eyes and ears whereas her husband watches, helpless, because the hospital staff fails to avoid wasting her. That’s the heightened drama the remainder of the episode didn’t ship.

“Toxic Behavior” – FBI: MOST WANTED, Pictured: Roxy Sternberg as Special Agent Sheryll Barnes, Shantel VanSanten as Special Agent Nina Chase, and Edwin Hodge as Special Agent Ray Cannon. Photo: Mark Schafer/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The pregnant woman’s death was the second unexplained death that day, prompting the Fugitive Task Force to investigate. Special Agent Ray Cannon (Edwin Hodge) talks to the pregnant woman’s husband, Silas Durst (Jon McCormick), and learns that his wife, Maisey, had been painting the nursery before her death. Meanwhile, Supervisory Special Agent Remy Scott (Dylan McDermott) and Special Agent Nina Chase (Shantel VanSanten) rush to speak with the widow of the other victim, Carlos Hernandez, who was also working on a remodeling project.

That connection leads the FBI to a hardware store, where free lemonade had been handed out. Remy discovers a puncture mark in a water container, which is collected for testing. The results confirm the presence of a deadly poison—DMM.

Basketball players, poisoned in a park, die at St. Michaels. Remy deduces that poisoners are rare and difficult to catch, and his team can’t quite figure out whether their unsub (unknown suspect) is targeting specific victims or choosing them at random. Translation: How the hell are they going to catch this guy?

“Toxic Behavior” – FBI: MOST WANTED, Pictured: Dylan McDermott as Supervisory Particular Agent Remy Scott. Photograph: Mark Schafer/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The physique rely at St. Michaels climbs to 6. Remy causes that the killer should have hospital ties. Particular Brokers Ray Cannon and Sheryll Barnes (Roxy Sternberg) discuss to hospital employees to find out if anybody with an axe to grind is likely to be accountable.

One ER physician sums up the state of American healthcare: “The wheels are coming off the bus.” Translation: Everybody has an axe to grind. Ray and Sheryll’s investigation is abruptly interrupted when a person collapses in Ray’s arms, spewing blood throughout him earlier than dying.

CCTV footage leads Nina and Ray to a graffiti artist, who gives a sketch of their suspect. In the meantime, the killer sends a $10 million ransom demand embedded in a cipher. Remy, naturally, delights in deciphering it.

The message: “I wear many hats, but not on my head. The FBI tried to help, but the players are dead.”

With this, the FBI rapidly ascertains that the killer—white male, 40s—is Cormac McClure, a hospital orderly. When Remy and Sheryll query Cormac’s father, Dr. Franklin McClure (Ian Blackman), he paints his son as deeply flawed—somebody who struggles with self-worth, blames others for his station in life, and overdramatizes insignificant occasions—aka somebody with a ‘sufferer mentality.’

“Toxic Behavior” – FBI: MOST WANTED, Pictured: Roxy Sternberg as Particular Agent Sheryll Barnes. Photograph: Mark Schafer/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Then comes the unlikeliest detective of all of them—Cormac’s 13-year-old son, Jason (Judah Mackey). He unravels his father’s sinister scheme: poisoning random folks to demand a $10 million ransom. A shallow plot, courtesy of a shallow motivation.

Jason challenges his father with logic, asking: “All the people killed—did they hurt you? How is this helping?”

Cormac’s glib response? “We’ll be rich. But if we don’t get the money, they’ll still pay with their lives. We win either way.”

Ultimately, the Fugitive Job Pressure tracks Cormac’s location through Jason’s telephone. Cue the requisite, end-of-episode chase. The FBI kills Cormac in entrance of his son, who grabs the poison his father deliberate to make use of in an act of revenge in opposition to an condo advanced that rejected him. Jason spirals into nihilism, crying, “Nothing matters!”

Ray holsters his weapon and approaches him. “Everything matters,” he tells Jason, giving him a alternative: give up the poison or spend his life behind bars—or worse. The latter, after all, shouldn’t be what his father would need. Jason relents, handing over the poison, and is embraced by Ray.

“Poisonous Conduct” – FBI: MOST WANTED, Pictured (L-R): Shantel VanSanten as Particular Agent Nina Chase and Edwin Hodge as Particular Agent Ray Cannon. Photograph: Mark Schafer/CBS ©2025 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Now, right here’s the place the storytelling failed: the showrunner opted for “telling” as an alternative of “showing.” Cormac’s motivations would’ve landed more durable if we noticed him being denied his condo, shoved round on the subway, or mistreated by his boss. These are the flimsy excuses he provides to justify his actions—so why not make the viewers ‘see’ them?

Tv is a visible medium. Just a few fast edits illustrating Cormac’s distorted worldview might have saved the episode from devolving right into a cartoonish portrayal of a killer with a sufferer advanced. As an alternative, the narrative felt pressured, the plot skinny, and any deeper psychological or ethical complexities missed. What we obtained as an alternative was clichés and melodrama that probably left viewers disconnected and unimpressed.

Finally, “Toxic Behavior” tries to marry its crime procedural roots with a compelling research of psychopathology—however it stumbles. Provided that well-balanced storytelling is FBI: Most Wished’s bread and butter, this lack of nuance and depth makes for a forgettable watch. The episode might’ve been higher. Because it stands—thumbs down (barely).

What did you consider the McClure’s household dynamic? Let me know within the feedback.

General Score

5/10

Lynette Jones