When Criminal Minds: Evolution returns for Season 17 (premiering Thursday, June 6, with two episodes), it will be doing so without one of its long-time recurring stars. In January, Josh Stewart, who has recurred since debuting in the original run’s second season, wrote on social media that his “days of playing Will LaMontagne Jr. are over.” But how will the show address the absence of JJ’s (A.J. Cook) husband, especially considering how much we saw of them at home together in the first season of the revival? TV Insider asked showrunner Erica Messer just that.
“Yeah, we really enjoyed that run last season and then this season again, because it’s only two weeks from last season and it’s sort of a bullet train of a year, we know that he’s on an assignment, just like there’s always another case, just like we always have another case,” Messer explains. “So we’re not going to see him this year, as he posted, but we’ll figure out what that means for future seasons, if we get future seasons. But for this year, the timing, none of it worked.”
So that means we shouldn’t be expecting JJ to become the latest member of the BAU to suffer a tragic loss at home, right? “No, I mean, not in Season 17,” confirms Messer.
The BAU will have its hands full in Season 17 as it is, so it’s not too surprising that there might not be much time to go home with all the agents. Season 16 ended with Elias Voit (Zach Gilford) in custody, but the man who has a network of serial killers seems to know more than the profilers do, with his use of the words Gold Star, now their focus.
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As that conspiracy unfolds in Season 17, the members of the BAU are met with an unexpected complication when Voit negotiates a deal that transfers him to federal custody in their own backyard. The team faces its biggest threat yet and cannot emerge unscathed from the mind-bending consequences.
Criminal Minds: Evolution, Season 17 Premiere (two episodes), Thursday, June 6, Paramount+
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