CIA is returning for another action-packed season — and its crossover with FBI is just the beginning.
In Us‘ exclusive first look at the season 2 trailer, Colin (Tom Ellis) reflects on his professional relationship with Bill (Nick Gehlfuss).
“Let me tell you a story. People are complicated. My new partner is a Boy Scout with a briefcase,” he says in the voiceover. “Me? I work outside the box — in the shadows.”
Colin and Bill appear to still butt heads as they solve cases.
“You lie every time you open your mouth,” Bill tells Colin, who fires back, “Welcome to espionage.”
While there are no clips from the FBI crossover, CBS previously confirmed that John Boyd would appear as Agent Stuart Scola on CIA while Necar Zadegan‘s Nikki Reynard would briefly move to FBI in a two-way crossover.
FBI debuted on CBS in 2018 and follows the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York City. The network followed that up with FBI: Most Wanted, which aired from 2020 to 2025, about the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Fugitive Task Force. There was also the FBI: International spinoff about the International Fly Team that ran for four seasons before concluding in 2025.
In April 2025, CBS gave CIA a straight-to-series order starring Ellis, 47, and Gehlfuss, 41. According to the official synopsis, CIA centers on “two unlikely partners — a fast-talking, rule-breaking loose cannon CIA case officer and a by-the-book, seasoned and smart FBI agent who believes in the rule of law.”
“If these two people are going to get paired up to work together, there has to be an element of trust. How can you trust someone who isn’t always telling you the truth and is quite often bare faced lying to you?” Ellis teased to Us in March. “But as the season goes on, Bill starts to realize why Colin is this way and the type of work that he does and why it’s important that he doesn’t let people in.”
Ellis went on to compare CIA to its predecessor FBI.
“The FBI deals in crimes that have already happened predominantly and the CIA try to stop the crime from happening in the first place,” Ellis exclusively told Us. “FBI is a very public present arm of the law enforcement. They’re the poster boy of U.S. law enforcement. And the CIA is very much in the shadows — and doesn’t want to be on any poster. It doesn’t want people to see who they are and they operate in a very sort of voyeuristic manner.”
At the time, the actor discussed how he was thrilled by the challenging character work, adding, “He chooses and hand picks what he tells people about himself. Sometimes you realize that that changes and you think about how reliable is this? How reliable is this source? But it’s always about self preservation. For the CIA, they can’t let anyone into their inner circle, and so that’s why it becomes a bit of a stumbling block for Bill.
Ellis concluded: “It’s really weird going from a character on Lucifer who prided himself on never lying to now playing someone who basically exclusively deals in lying. Because of what Colin does and because of how long he’s done it for, his sense of what reality is is probably a bit warped by now.”
CIA returns to CBS Monday, October 5, at 9 p.m. ET.
