Courtney Balcombe – Staff Writer

clb6264@psu.edu

The return to the Behavioral Analysis Unit, BAU, is one of the most interesting seasons for “Criminal Minds.” As Paramount+ brought the show back following the 2020 COVID pandemic in “Criminal Minds Evolution.”

A little background on the BAU, the group itself solves cases following serial killers based on patterns of the killing itself. While the show went through the main cast for most of the series, “Evolution” only brought back a few cast members from season 15 such as SSA David Rossi, SSA Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, SSA Emily Prentiss, SSA Luke Alvez, Dr. Tara Lewis, and Technical Analysis Penelope Garcia. While many fans are upset to see that Matthew Gray Gubler will not be returning to his role as Dr. Spener Ried, however, Paget Brewster, who plays Prentiss, has addressed the reasoning behind his not returning.

According to ScreenRant, Brewster shared that Gubler wants to venture out in his career. She cites that playing the BAU’s boy genius was his first job out of college, and for 15 years, he regularly appeared in the series. Although it was a blessing to have job stability for more than a decade, it had some trade-offs, including being unable to star in other projects and try his hand at directing. After the CBS show wrapped, Gubler wanted to do those, hence why he decided to skip Criminal Minds: Evolution.

This reboot follows a network of serial killers working under one man, Elias Voit, pulling the strings of when the serial killers are allowed to kill. Anyone who has seen “Criminal Minds” in the past 15 seasons knows that every episode tends to follow a different serial killer. While this show does follow a different one in each of the three episodes that have been released, each serial killer keeps in touch with Voit to get the “okay” to kidnap and kill their victims. I give this show a solid 10/10.