CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION’s Kirsten Vangsness Previews Garcia’s Reluctant Reunion with the BAU

When CRIMINAL MINDS signed off in 2020, Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) left BAU, expecting that she was really done with the work that had been rewarding, but had taken a toll on the computer genius.

In the new Paramount+ revival CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION—which bows on Thursday, November 24—fans will see a new Garcia, who has reevaluated her life in the aftermath of changing jobs and the global pandemic.

“She has been going to therapy,” Vangsness told reporters in the video below. “I think that she has realized that the trauma that she had from dealing with people in trauma, she didn’t know how to offload it. It caused her a tremendous amount of armoring that she has spent much of the pandemic sort of exploring and disarmoring herself.”

Garcia’s way of handling her changing environment was to “curate a job that was going to help kids and do all this stuff,” Vangsness shares. “And [she] set up rules for herself and boundaries.”

But when a new BAU case puts her on a collision course with her former team, “she’s very conflicted,” Vangsness previews. “But she can’t not do it. So the question becomes, ‘How do you go back into something and adhere to the promises and the value system of who you now have decided you are?’ And I think she does a really good job of that.”

Of course, there’s also the matter of the date Garcia was supposed to go on with now-former colleague Alvez (Adam Rodríguez). Vangsness shares more about where the duo stand in the video below…

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, Season Premiere, Thursday, November 24, Paramount+

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