New update: Criminal Minds Season 18 will return in late 2024 and will feature Matthew Gray Gubler and Shemar Moore.
Criminal Minds: Evolution might have just wrapped Season 2, but it looks like it won’t be too long before we can again catch up with our favorite group of FBI criminal profilers, as production on Season 3 (or Season 18 if you count from the CBS original) is already underway. The police procedural aired its Season 2 finale just this August and while fans knew that more was coming as the show scored a renewal at Paramount+ ahead of Season 2’s premiere, they did not expect a return of the series to happen so soon. The BAU team is now officially back in front of cameras to ready the next installment of the fan-favorite show as quickly as possible.
The exciting production update was shared on social media via the official Criminal MindsFacebook and Instagram accounts. “Wheels up! The new season of #CriminalMinds: Evolution is officially in production,” the Facebook caption read. Accompanying the announcement is a set of behind-the-scenes and on-set photos, including one showing the team back in the business of brainstorming in front of the investigation board. Another photo sees the team posing together holding up a clapper board which itself gets a closeup shot that reveals veteran TV director, Bethany Rooney (Beverly Hills, Grey’s Anatomy) as the director for the episode being shot and Anthony Vietro as the camera operator.
The photos also reveal A.J. Cook‘s character, Special Agent Jennifer Jareau sporting a new refreshed hairdo. The photo slides also include shots of desk nameplates of Penelope Garcia and Emily Prentiss, teasing the return of both characters played by Kirsten Vangsness and Paget Brewster respectively. While fans can expect to see the return of most characters from the previous season, they are particularly interested in seeing the return of Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore) and fan-favorite boy genius Spencer Reid, (Matthew Gray Gubler) who has been MIA for a while now. Gubler has in the past hinted at his return to the series which has only been hampered by scheduling conflicts.
What To Expect From Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3?
Season 2’s storyline completed the Gold Star storyline, which some argue could have been handled better. Regardless, showrunner Erica Messer teases that audiences should expect the return of serial killer Elias Voit (Zach Gilford). “Oh, yeah. He’s not done. I feel like, at the end of every season, he just finds a new way to cause trouble,” Messer teased in her recent interview with Collider. Messer went on to buttress that Voit will still be very much around as the story continues to develop into revealing his identity as Sicarius. About the definite conclusion of the Gold star program, she said:
“We wanted to be clear that the Gold Star investigation is complete. There won’t be anything dangling from that, and those three characters (Jade, Pete Bailey, and Mila ) are so heavily tied to that storyline. Right now, we’re not seeing bringing them back, but I would never say never. And like I said, we’re not done with the season break yet. It feels complicated to say, on one hand, “Gold Star is over,” and then, “By the way, here are some Gold Stars.” That’s where we are right now. It just feels like we wanna have a clean break.”
A release date for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 has not been set, but stay tuned for prompt updates.
