FX’s FBI thriller, Class of ’09, dropped its eventful final episode on Hulu Wednesday, June 21. And so much went down in the past, the present, and the future that fans will likely need a recap before they say farewell to Tayo (Brian Tyree Henry), Poet (Kate Mara), Lennix (Brian J. Smith), and Hour (Sepideh Moafi).
The penultimate episode of Tom Rob Smith’s time-jumping series flashed back to the trainees learning their assigned job locations. It also showed Tayo using the AI system in the field and getting attacked at his home in the present before coming to his senses and trying to shut down the technology in the future. Tayo reunited with his Class of ’09 pals and set out to shutter the system, but in the final minutes of the episode, not only were his plans thwarted, he was fired as FBI director. Before the end of the episodes, Lenixx proposed to Poet and she accepted, and Tayo is reunited with Vivienne (Rosalind Eleazar). But just when things were looking up, the terrifying drones hovered and new FBI Director Warren (Dan Tracy) informed Tayo’s appointees he was no longer director. In the final scene, Warren menacingly said, “Now let’s see what this system can really do,” setting the stage for a final battle.
Wondering what Class of ’09 has in store in Episode 8, “Graduation”? Or if AI or our trusty team of human Quantico grads prevailed? Decider’s Ending Explained breaks down Tayo, Poet, Lennix, and Hour’s intense final chapter.
Class of ’09 Episode 8, “Graduation,” kicks off with Tayo in the present (2025) thinking about his home invasion. He meets Poet and says he’s “mad as hell” because someone tried to have him killed, then he explains he joined the Bureau because the department covered up his father’s death. “They killed my father, and they’re trying to kill me. But I won’t let them kill this chance for change,” he explains.
Tayo later tells Poet the man who attacked him in his home was named Kyle Wilcox, he had no bank account and was dishonorably discharged from the military. Though Tayo found no evidence the man was bought or bribed, he’s still convinced it was a murder for hire, so Poet runs the crime through the system and finds 315 possible suspects ranked by probability. The system pulls up Kyle Wilcox alongside the most likely suspect named Aaron Dow, who overlapped with Wilcox in the military. There’s just one problem: Dow’s files are mysteriously sealed, so Tayo goes to the top.
He walks into the FBI director’s office and asks who ordered the hit. The man explains that a few months ago after the arrests on Wall Street and the bank collapsed he was ordered to explain how the new system worked to the federal government and knew the news would spread fast. Tayo tells him there’s nothing heroic about looking the other way, and the director replies by saying he’s stepping down early and advises Tayo to leave the team as well rather than take his place. As we know from the future timeline, Tayo doesn’t listen and becomes FBI director. But the finale lets us know that Tayo was only allowed to keep the system if he abided by a list of exemptions; people who can never be considered suspects, including spies, diplomats, and the president.
Back at Tayo’s house, Vivienne is looking at a pregnancy test, and when he arrives home and tells her about his promotion, she asks him not to take it. Still rattled by the home invasion, she asks Tayo to move away with her and leave it all behind to ensure their safety. But he tells her he’s going forward with his plan with or without her, and we switch focus to Poet and Hour who are having a weighty discussion of their own.
Hour says Poet is the only reason she didn’t resign from the Bureau after her work was stolen and she expresses her concerns with the current AI system. Poet tells her Tayo plans to take the system wide as soon as he becomes FBI director, and Hour stresses that she created the system as a tool to help agents make better decisions, not to replace them. (LISTEN TO HOUR!) She asks Poet to trust her and warns that taking the system wide could fundamentally change the Bureau for the worse, but Poet stands by Tayo, who’s already asking Amos to exclude people from the code. He makes the unethical choice — one that Amos warns will have unforeseen repercussions — and implements the altered system nationwide to every field office and every agent. The immediate results seem promising, with crime down in 2025 and an increase in white-collar crime arrests, but a montage shows that by 2030 arrests have skyrocketed — not for crimes people have committed, but for crimes they’re likely to commit. The system’s data predictions lead to an abundance of innocent arrests and spark mass protests against a surveillance state, inspiring people to move to less surveilled rural areas, including Tayo and Vivienne.
In the future, 2034, the system recommends arresting Vivienne and Director Warren gives the green light. Three FBI vehicles arrive at Tayo and Viv’s new house and after a drone strikes Tayo, officials arrest Viv for a book she’s writing that features a collection of anti-AI accounts. After Vivienne’s AI data profile is compiled and she’s booked, she speaks in court with Tao, Lennix, Poet, and Hour looking on. Vivienne tells the judges they have no authority and says the verdict will depend entirely on calculations they can’t see or hear. She explains humans shouldn’t be reduced to code and judged by that code, and though her speech is compelling, Tayo tells his friends the verdict was already decided before she entered the courtroom.
As they’re scrambling for a plan, Hour asks if Tayo can get them into the original data center so she can emit an EMP pulse, shut down the servers, and reprogram the code so it can’t be altered, as Amos suggested with the card he gave Poet before he was killed. The grand plan is to eliminate the exemptions Tayo once agreed to so everyone’s equal in the eyes of the law. And the Class of ’09 grads are so confident people in power won’t want to risk their own accountability that they’ll shut down the system themselves.
With guns in hand, the group heads to the original data center, shoots down patrolling drones, and safely makes it inside. Hour successfully reprograms the code with Amos’ card, and the group leaves the center with their hands up in preparation for their arrests. When Director Warren visits Tayo in holding, Tayo says he wanted to ensure people like him couldn’t abuse their power anymore. “It’s either an unbiased system or it’s off,” Tayo explains. So the system is finally deactivated, power is returned to the people, and all predictive arrests and cases based on deductions by the system are nullified immediately, which means Vivienne and the group go free.
After the shutdown, Poet teaches the Class of 2034, informing them that the Bureau’s system is off, crime is up, and they’re entering a challenging — but hopeful — period. “You’re the first of a new class here at Quantico. Your first lesson will involve teaching you about how justice is more than probability. It’s about exceptions; good and bad,” she says. “An instructor once told me that the FBI is its people. We would like to make that true again… I’d like you each to stand up and tell me who you were, who you are, and who you want to be.” Full circle!
Before the series concludes, Tayo stresses in an interview that he set out to change the country’s “incredibly biased law enforcement system into one that reflected equality.” Instead of removing “the systemic treatment of people of color as suspects first and human beings second,” he inadvertently welcomed a system where every human was made a suspect first. “Many argue the bed I made at the Bureau was misguided, but for the first time in history people from different walks of life found themselves on the same side of America’s justice system together. And that’s a start,” he concludes.
After Poet leaves flowers at her mother’s grave, we travel back to the past and see the newly sworn-in Class of ’09 taking their graduation photo wondering what their future holds. They’re in for a few unpleasant surprises, to say the least, but in the end, Poet, Hour, Lennix, and Tayo make major moves to become the people they want to be.
Class of ’09 is now streaming on Hulu.