‘Criminal Minds’ Boss Talks ‘Messy’ Season 14 Finale Twist

Criminal Minds ended its fourteenth season with an emotional confessions that left fans, and two main characters, broken-hearted.

Ahead of Rossi’s (Joe Mantegna) wedding to Krystall (Gail O’Grady), a tense situation during the case of the week led to JJ (A.J. Cook) admitting her true feelings for her co-worker and close friend Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler).

“Spence… I’ve always loved you,” JJ shared during a deadly game of “Truth or Dare” with the Unsub. “I was just too scared to say it before. And things are really just too complicated to say it now… I’m sorry. But you should know.”

After the ceremony, JJ told Reid that she only said that to throw off the criminal holding them hostage. However, Reid challenged her to another game of Truth or Dare and asked her if she meant it, but left the question unanswered until next season.

In an interview with TVLine, Criminal Minds showrunner Erica Messer discussed the big reveal.

“What’s funny about all of this is the pitch came to me from the writer’s room, and I’m so ‘mother lion’ about all of the characters, so my immediate reaction was, ‘That’s not going to work, they’re siblings. No, they’re siblings, they’re siblings.’ And then the room kept pitching me, and I had written in [Episode] 300 about that time that Reid invited her to the Redskins game and other people were sort of trying to pair them up as a couple…” Messer told the outlet. “We had longer conversations about it, and I thought, well, you know these people have been in the trenches together — not literally, obviously, but as far as work goes, it’s life or death quite often, and who are we to say who gets close and who doesn’t get close?”

She added: “I’ve talked to plenty in law enforcement, and there’s a bond there that defies a traditional definition. And so, I just kind of fell more in love with the idea that, yeah, it’s messy and it’s weird, and “I’ve loved you for a long time,’ like, that’s just the truth.”

Messer teased that JJ’s confession will be addressed directly during the first two hours of Season 15.

“It’s definitely a huge driver for the first handful or episodes that will help add layers to those characters again,” she said.

Some of those layers will be how the confession affects JJ’s marriage to Det. William LaMontagne, with whom she shares two children. Messer promised that the 10-episode final season will dive into how her feelings for Reid will affect the relationships in her life.

As far as if Spence shares the same feelings as JJ? Messer revealed that in a poll she conducted, people were split on whether or not JJ had told the truth to the Unsub, but were all in agreement that Reid feels the same way.

What did you think of the season finale twist? Criminal Minds will return for a 15th and final season during the 2019-20 TV season.