Criminal Minds Season 13: Kirsten Vangsness Previews BAU vs. Barnes
03/06/2018 | By Mace Parker
Criminal Minds returns this Wednesday and things are only going to get worse for the BAU.
TV Line and TV Guide spoke to Kirsten Vangsness (Penelope Garcia) about the upcoming episodes and how Assistant Director Linda Barnes (Kim Rhodes) and her plans will affect the BAU. TV Line Interview: CBS’ Criminal Minds team will find their crime-solving style effectively cramped this Wednesday at 10/9c, when haughty FBI honcho Linda Barnes tags along on a case. (Ugh.) After all, the ambitious Executive Assistant Director of the FBI (played by Kim Rhodes) already has rattled the ranks by benching Prentiss and putting JJ in charge, all while putting the BAU on notice that their admittedly successful strategies sometimes are… suspect. Here, original cast member (and occasional episode writer) Kirsten Vangness previews Barnes’ butting-in, which will be followed by a stealthy BAU op that fuels one of the actress’ favorite episodes ever. TVLINE | Criminal Minds is back this week, and we’ve got Barnes tagging along with the team. On a scale of one to 10, how awkward is that for the gang? Oh, like a 14. It’s weird. It’s real weird. She’s like the Dolores Umbridge of the BAU. Kim Rhodes is so delightful, so it is very weird. It’s like how when I’m talking to Adam Rodriguez as Kirsten, I’m totally normal, and then we go to do a scene and I sneer at him and I give him dirty looks as Garcia. We do scenes with [Kim], and once we hear “Cut!” everybody’s like, “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry,” because Barnes is burning down our house systematically and we’re trying to hose it all down at the same time. TVLINE | Is Garcia somewhat insulated from Barnes tagging along, given that she typically stays behind? No one is safe. Trust me. When we were shooting the episode that I wrote [which came two weeks before Rhodes’ debut on the mothership], Erica Messer, our showrunner, said something off-handily to me and I was like, “What?” She was like, “Oh, yeah, leading up to the end of the season we’re doing this arc….” She didn’t want to tell me because she wanted to tell everybody at the same time. So we’re all sitting in the table read for this episode and everybody’s jaws hit the floor. We’re all looking at each other like, “What’s going on?” You keep thinking, “This isn’t really happening, no, no, no,” but it’s really happening. She had to sit us down and kind of talk us through it, and even talking us through what happens is terrifying. So you’ve got the awkwardness of Barnes, that huge obstacle of having someone that is in charge of your work eagle-eyeing everything you’re doing when your job is entirely based on intuition. It’s a totally impossible situation. And the episode that follows this one builds on that, and the bullet train just goes! That next episode (airing March 14) is certainly on my Top 5 favorite episodes ever of Criminal Minds. TVLINE | Is that the one where the team works a case in secret away from Barnes? Off-book? Yes. And there are so many Easter eggs and joys for people who watch the show on the reg in that episode and, God, through the whole end of the season. There’s so many cool things that happen. And you have Adam Rodriguez directing one, then you Matthew Gray Gubler directing one, and then you have Joe Mantegna directing one, all back-to-back-to-back, which was dreamy. It’s the dreamiest place to work anyway. People say that, but I don’t know if everybody gets it. All eight of us were texting each other last night, gushing about how excited we are the show’s coming back on. And I spent all of Sunday with Paget [Brewster] and Aisha [Tyler] and A.J.[Cook] in my hot tub just talking, because we do that once a month… TVLINE | Wait, how come that doesn’t get Instagram’d? That’s a real thing! We do that because [Criminal Minds] is such a delightful place to work. I’m just so appreciative I get to do this for a living and I get to do it with these people that are all so kind and creative. It’s an embarrassment of riches. But these upcoming episodes, I think, are going to be very disturbing for people. And they were very hard to do. TVLINE | Hell, it was hard to just watching Barnes confront Prentiss in that recent episode. Oh, that’s nothing, my friend. That is nothing. It’s amazing what the writers did because it’s a complicated, Jenga-like, house of cards/Rubik’s Cube type of thing. They tore it down and that, I think, is a hallmark of a really good writer — the ability to not hold onto a shred of that, to just take it all away and then try to figure out how you go from there. TVLINE | Well, that’s what’s kind of brilliant. Last season we saw the team get these wins, finally getting Reid out of prison and stuff, but then a year later Barnes presents it all from this completely different point of view and you realize, “Oh, man. They have kind of been breaking rules left and right.” Erica and I wrote that episode [where Prentiss deleted Reid’s incriminating confession] and we were very cognizant of like, “OK, this is what we could do…. We could make it that she makes not the greatest choices. She could have told the truth about that.” We went into that going, “You know what? Let’s keep this because this could be really satisfying when there’s a payoff.” That’s the great thing about any good antagonist, is that they kind of have a leg to stand on. TVLINE | If the team is working surreptitiously in the March 14 episode, does that mean you can’t use the jet and other typical resources? I can’t even. Like I said, that’s in my Top 5 favorite, you have no idea. It’s extraordinary. That episode is written by Breen Frazier, and he’s really deft at magical realism mixed with the facts and a cool, really good storyline, so he took things away and put things in that no one is used to. It’s really cool and scary and weird, but also funny in ways that you don’t expect. TVLINE | Before we go, what can you say about the episode later this season where Garcia’s family history is revisited? That one is really neat; we’re in the middle of shooting it right now. Because the show’s been on this long, the writers put things in one episode like, “Why is her name Garcia?” And in another episode the next season, she makes a reference to four stepbrothers. Well, what they did was they took allll those little moments and put it all together and now you get to see all of her sort of tragic past, and you get to see some of her family. You see her going back home and having to negotiate some stuff, so it’s a quieter show, but we still have a case to whet people’s murder-camp whistle. TV Guide Interview:
Linda Barnes (Kim Rhodes) has only just begun to wreak her havoc on Criminal Minds. The Assistant Director of National Security was responsible for disbanding Simmons' (Daniel Henney) previous team and now she's coming for the BAU. She's already managed to put Prentiss (Paget Brewster) on administrative leave, forcing J.J. (A.J. Cook) to be temporary lead of the team — even though Barnes is really the one pulling the strings. In Wednesday's episode, "Annihilator," J.J. will take the team out on their first case without Prentiss, but has very serious reservations about taking the job under the circumstances. Even though Rossi (Joe Mantegna) tries to assure her, the pressure is on for J.J. and the rest of the team to be on perfect behavior or risk Barnes succeeding in splitting the team apart. TV Guide talked to Criminal Minds' Kirsten Vangsness, who plays the team's eagle-eyed cyber guru Garcia, about how Barnes is going to affect the team and whether the BAU can withstand interference on this level. What is it like to have Linda Barnes babysitting this next case? Kirsten Vangsness: Oh my god! She is the Dolores Umbridge of the BAU, if you're a Harry Potter fan. She is coming in and ruining Christmas in such a way that I hate it so much. It's really sad because she's a nice person in real life...All of us were actively scared [during the table read]. It doesn't stop. This is the awful episode that happens that you need to have happen. It's a great episode but I don't think that people will enjoy what's going down. I didn't at all...It's a beautiful build up to the next episodes we have. This job is based on everyone being intuitive and having each other's back. How do you do that when you have this person who is based entirely on her neck up, entirely on her brain? She is not thoughtful about things. It's hard. How is the team reacting to J.J. being head of the group, considering the circumstances? Vangsness: It's weird. It's weird for her. I don't think she wants that role. I think that she's doing the best that she can in it. It's very hard to do when you have this other woman. She's the acting head but Barnes is all up in her grill. I think we've all had this experience...We've all had the experience where you've had a job that you've been tasked to do and then there's this oppressive energy that's all up in our grill that makes it impossible to do the job well. I think that's causing [J.J.] a lot of conflict because she can't do things the way she wants to do it. This builds beautifully for what happens next. How is it going to be different for Garcia? She's not in the field and she has a bird's eye view of everything that's going on. Vangsness: There's a little sprinkling of how bad it gets, and then it gets a million times worse. You will get plenty of her feelings about the situation. This is a build that just keeps building. The episode that will air on March 14 — you need this episode in order to really inform it. This is one of those classic, cool the case and then the Barnes of it all on top of it [episodes]. You get to see people outside of their natural habitat. You get to see more of that in other episodes. Paget [Brewster, Prentiss] is still in the episode, she's just not with the team. You have other team members trying to be there for her and with her. You will see everyone in environments that you'd never to expect. We were shooting on locations. The entire team thinks of the BAU as family, but Garcia in particular is very sensitive to any changes or fluctuation within the team. How badly is she spiraling at the prospect that the team could be disbanded? Vangsness: It's the worst. When it starts going you'll be like, "Oh, that's what she meant." It's the worst ever. It's terrible. It's been really fun because we really do like each other so much...When you see the contrast of what it could be like if, you know, there's going to be a time when the show's not on the air. We're all exquisitely aware of the fact that we get to be on this train with each other. When you get the contrast at the character to see what it's like to not have those people around or not around in the way that you're used to, it's painful. It affects Garcia a lot. Garcia couldn't do that job if she didn't have the connections that she has with them. She's so empathic and if you take away her ability to be able to commiserate or to touch base with someone, it's harder for her to do her job. She needs that. It's really scary when that leaves her. The audience and Prentiss know that Barnes is specifically going after Reid and Rossi. How obvious is that going to be to the rest of the team once she's embedded with them? Vangesness: It's going to get really obvious. The great thing about the way that the show is written is that nobody is completely without — you know, there's a lot of choices. We all make choices every day and some of those choices we 1000 percent stand behind and some of them we go, "Well, that was a last minute thing" or "Well, I did the best I could with what I had." Our team has made a series of choices in the past and in the blink of an eye because you have to and they're easy to count on. If you don't know, you could twist it or decide to use it to your advantage. I think Barnes is very good at that. She is very shrewd. We have such a good actor playing that role. They give her plenty of ammo by accident. Is there any reason for us to like Linda Barnes? Vangsness: Linda Barnes is responsible for some really wonderful stuff that's going to go down. Unfortunately, she has to bear the brunt of it. I call people like that "my spiritual friends." She's our spiritual friend in that we're going to learn our lessons and stuff. Everyone should like her because if it wasn't for Linda Barnes we wouldn't have some cool stuff happening. Buffy the Vampire Slayer doesn't exist without the big bads. Catch all new episodes of Criminal Minds every Wednesday at 10/9c on CBS.
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