What That ‘Criminal Minds’ Finale Bombshell Means for the Final Season
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The following post contains spoilers from the Season 14 finale of Criminal Minds.]
The Season 14 finale of Criminal Minds, titled “Truth or Dare,” left fans experiencing mixed emotions. They were equally jumping up and down with joy and scratching their heads in confusion.
The moment in question is when JJ (A.J. Cook) made a jaw-dropping confession. She revealed — while being held at gun point by an unsub, we should add — that she’s “always” been in love with her BAU colleague Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) but was “too scared to say it before.”
What?! We know.
JJ is supposedly happily married to Will (Josh Stewart) and has two kids, so what’s going to happen? Criminal Minds is heading into its 15th and final season, which means storylines need to wrap up.
CM showrunner Erica Messer told ET that JJ’s bombshell will “definitely be explored.”
She added, “Ultimately, it goes down to the relationships that people have been watching and seeing how they’ve grown over the years. There’s something real in people who have worked together for a super long time — certainly in law enforcement, where it’s life and death.
“Some people would say it’s like going to war together. You have a bond with people that can’t be defined. It’s one in times of incredible stress. We wanted to be able to acknowledge that but also be completely aware that this is going to be a bomb for a lot of people.”
Messer also wasn’t entirely convinced the relationship was a good idea when first pitched.
“I was really concerned about it. The writers’ room pitched it to me, and I was like, ‘No, we can’t do that,'” she admitted. “The more we talked about it as a team and the more we talked with Matthew and A.J. about it, it was like, ‘This could work. This makes sense and here’s why.’ It’s something that we wanted to explore in the final 10 [episodes] and allow ourselves insight into our heroes and allow them to grow from this revelation.”
And also don’t expect a typical love triangle, because only Reid and JJ are aware of her confession. Actually, when the series returns it will skip ahead six months, according to Messer, and neither person has addressed it, so things are “muddy.”
“Her confessing that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love the life she has tremendously. Without giving away too much of the actual dialogue that’s coming up, she’s been defined by the love in her life, and the love in her life is Will and the kids, it’s Reid, it’s her friends, it’s the work that she does,” Messer teased.
“There are a lot of things that define people, and [Reid] is one of those things to her. Maybe if she had never met Will in Season 2, things would’ve been different. If in another time and place… There’s heartbreak to that, but you would want to know that in a friendship or relationship. It’s complicated.”
We can’t even imagine what’s ahead.
Criminal Minds, Season 15, Coming soon, CBS
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Amazing season finale!!! JJ and Reid have always had a special connection since the show began and I have always wanted them to get together!! Reid has been in love with JJ since the beginning and now to know she loves him back!! I'm so excited for this storyline!! AJ's performance in that heartbreaking scene was incredible!
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that caught me off guard !!!.
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JJ and Spencer Reid have Beautiful Chemistry together. When they are together on the screen, they are mesmerizing. l hope the Criminal Minds writers are not just setting Spencer up for another broken heart. It is too much to ask of his character. I have never liked the portrayal of Will, JJ's husband. Their marriage, always seemed forced to me because JJ was pregnant with his child, and then he offers to marry her. My hope is Spencer and JJ become a lovely, married couple with shared custody of her children. If the writers of Criminal Minds, insist on Spencer continuing to love JJ chaste and afar, then I pray his character is allowed to leave the BAU; so he can search for love and happiness elsewhere.
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Yeah, I certainly never expected that if Reid and JJ did acknowledge any feelings for each other, they'd just up and get together with no concern for JJ's marriage and her family and things of that sort. That's just not who they are. If this thing between Reid and JJ does develop into something more, I hope they can find a respectful way to handle everything with JJ's marriage, and how she and Will move on from that.
And if they ultimately decide to remain friends, that's fine, too. Again, just hope that they can reconcile all of that in a way that stays true to the characters and lets them find some good closure.
Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out :).
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JJ and Reid as better as brother/sister.
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This was one of the worst writing decisions in a show I watch, and I used to watch Glee and OUAT
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Ditto!
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It was terrible horrible no good very bad plot twist which made me regret ever watching CM. I'm very happy the show got canceled, it's what they deserve.
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