FBI: International Brought Back A Former Star, And His Comments About Filming In Budapest Make Me Sad All Over Again About The Cancellation

Spoilers ahead for Episode 17 of FBI: International Season 4 on CBS, called “Dead Dead” and streaming next day with a Paramount+ subscription.

FBI: International brought back none other than Jay Hayden for the latest episode of the 2025 TV schedule, with Agent Tyler Booth turning up on behalf of the Extraterritorial Squad out of the Washington Field Office to team up with the Fly Team again. Despite Wes cracking some jokes about the agency being concerned with space aliens (and despite the missed opportunity for an X-Files joke), Tyler fit right back in with the team, and ended the episode with an open invitation to rejoin.

The development reminded me of what Hayden told me earlier in Season 4 about filming in Budapest, how it matched with Jesse Lee Soffer‘s sentiments, and another reason why it’s so sad that FBI: International was cancelled along with FBI: Most Wanted.

What Brought Tyler Booth Back To The Fly Team

The case of the week took the team to Switzerland after a seemingly apparent mysterious death involving an American, and it quickly became complicated with the reveals of various affairs, including one man taking advantage of a barely-legal teen who trusted him. The plot thickened when the man having the affairs was killed in a scuffle with his 15-year-old son, and the Fly Team was duped into getting a confession out of the teen’s mom with the understanding that he’d be extradited to the U.S. for a gentler sentence.

Well, it was a close call that required Wes to pressure an ambassador into calling in some favors to make up for her part in the mess, and the case came to as happy an ending as possible. After pitching in with Wes and Co., Tyler was ready to go back to the Extraterritorial Squad – which investigates in territories outside of the U.S. and not space aliens – but Wes wanted him to stick with the more exciting work of the Fly Team.

And since the episode didn’t really touch on how Tyler left the team in the first place to be closer to his daughter in the U.S., I’m inclined to think that FBI: International really was planning to keep him around in the long term after giving Veronica St. Clair a shot as Agent Riley Quinn. He did mention his daughter, but didn’t cite her as a reason for any of his professional choices, and just said that it “turns out” he likes “travel perks.”

I’d normally be pretty excited at the idea, as most International stars who left the show haven’t returned, with the exception of Christiane Paul making a couple of guest appearances as Katrin Jaeger. Alas, the cancellation adds some tragedy to even the story about the cast’s “cute” tradition for watching the show, so it was bittersweet when I recalled Jay Hayden’s enthusiastic comments about filming in the capital of Hungary.

Jay Hayden On Filming In Budapest

Jesse Lee Soffer was hyping the arrival of his real-life friend weeks before Jay Hayden’s debut, and Hayden had some great reasons for why he wanted to join FBI: International so soon after Station 19 ended. In fact, the Station 19 alum only had great things to say about the whole experience when we spoke back in December 2024, ahead of his debut as Agent Tyler Booth. When I asked at the time what it had been like for him to film in Budapest, he shared:

Oh my gosh! The city is amazing. It’s gorgeous, and the food is awesome. It is really far away. It’s far! I mean, that’s a lot of flying time. When people are waking up here, you’re going to bed there, and vice versa. It’s an adjustment, and I have kids, so being away from them was difficult. The rest of the cast has got it all dialed in. They know where all the great places to eat are, the shopping, the stuff to do.

While it was tricky to film an ocean away from his kids, Jay Hayden only had good things to say about spending time in a Budapest and the series regulars being so settled into the city that they could recommend the best places for him to visit. And it turns out that the place that Jesse Lee Soffer was able to point him towards is quite fitting, after his first episode of International involved a surprisingly silly golf scene between Wes and Tyler.

At the time, Hayden joked that it “really chaps Jesse, it really burns him that my character is better than his character in the show” at golf. Golf has even become a running joke with Wes in the show by this point! The recurring guest said:

Jesse already knows where the golf course is out there. It was really great, and everyone was so nice about telling me all the places to go and all the things to do, but it is an adjustment.

I spoke with Soffer timed to the Season 4 premiere that introduced Wes Mitchell as the replacement for Luke Kleintank’s Scott Forrester, and he hyped how he was able to film in locations across Europe like Portugal and Paris. The Chicago P.D. vet had plenty to say about Budapest in particular, though, as he told me last fall:

The relocation has been so interesting and fun. Budapest is an amazing city. I’m learning Hungarian so that I can pick up little things here and there on set. I can curse up a storm. I’m not going to do any of that here today, but I’m really enjoying that stuff. The only tricky part is finding your kind of creature comforts. Amazon doesn’t really work here, so you can’t get the normal stuff that you get ordered to the house. [laughs] It’s a little trickier.

As if I needed more reasons to be bummed about FBI: International being cancelled, the cast members have had great experiences filming in Hungary. Christina Wolfe even opened up earlier in Season 4 about how the production team is able to make locations in Budapest double for other locations in Europe. Of the many crime dramas in primetime, International also set itself out from the pack with its overseas settings.

Well, at least the end isn’t nigh for a little while longer. Keep tuning in to CBS on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET for new episodes of FBI: International, between FBI at 8 p.m. ET and FBI: Most Wanted at 10 p.m. ET. The latest seasons of all three are also streaming via Paramount+.

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