A.J. Cook as Jennifer ‘JJ’ Jareau and Adam Rodriguez as Luke Alvez in CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 2 and/or Season 17 – “Piranha” | ©2024 Paramount+/Michael Yarish

Paramount Plus’s CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION is now in its second season, with new episodes dropping Thursdays on the streaming platform. Essentially, this is Season 17 of CRIMINAL MINDS, which ran from 2005 through 2020 on CBS, then moved in its slightly new iteration to Paramount Plus in 2022. It has recently been announced that CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION has been picked up for Season 3/Season 18, depending on how one calculates these things.

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION follows the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU, as they track down serial killers. Unlike the mostly standalone CBS episodes, both seasons of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION are heavily arced, with the BAU special agents forced to deal with homicidal mastermind Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), currently behind bars but still extremely dangerous.

A.J. Cook has played Special Agent Jennifer “J.J.” Jareau through since the 2005 second episode of CRIMINAL MINDS’s first season. Aisha Tyler joined the series as Dr. Tara Lewis in Season 11 in 2015. Ryan-James Hatanaka is the most cast recent member. His character, Tyler Green, recurred in Season 16, and became a regular this year. (We didn’t get to ask if there’s ever confusion on set between people talking about Tyler, the director/performer playing Tara, and Hatanaka’s character Tyler.)

J.J., Tara, and Tyler all broadly share the mission of getting to the bottom of why the U.S. government is so keen to protect Voit, but each character has their own problems. J.J. has learned that she is the subject of deep-fake porn on the Dark Web. Tara has a touchy relationship with her ex, who liaises with the BAU from another branch of government.

As for Tyler, he began last season as a suspect, but it turns out he is an ex-military vigilante, trying to bring down Voit by any means necessary. Tyler is now a BAU source, and involved in a forbidden on-again, off-again romance with BAU’s resident tech genius, Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness).

Cook, Tyler and Hatanaka all get on a Zoom call to talk CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION.

When CBS initially canceled CRIMINAL MINDS after Season 15, did Tyler and Cook think it was really over, or were they relatively unsurprised by the Paramount Plus pickup?

“Do you want to take that, A.J.?” Tyler asks.

Cook obliges. “Well, one can hope and dream.” At the time of Season 15, “We all feel like we just really got into the groove of the show, and this particular group of people, that we were all working together.”

Tyler says, “I think right at the end, I remember us all saying, ‘Man, we just hit our stride,’ right?”

Cook nods agreement.

“At the end of 15,” Tyler continues. we were like, ‘We just finally figured it out.’ So, it was a bummer. But then, between the three of us and the wall, they came back to us pretty fast,” she laughs.

Such was the international popularity of CRIMINAL MINDS, Cook relates, that, “We were hoping we would get the invitation, and especially for streaming, because that would be such a cool opportunity artistically. And listen – we all like each other. We would do this forever if you would let us. So, we’re happy that they decided to ask us.”

“[It’s] gratifying,” Tyler concurs. “I think that everybody could feel that the show had really come into a new era, even before we made the move to streaming. But it wasn’t a long interval between when the show went off the air and when we got a call, which was pretty cool.”

Do Tyler and Cook feel that CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION is essentially the same show as CRIMINAL MINDS, or do they feel there are substantial changes?

Aisha Tyler as Dr. Tara Lewis, Ryan-James Hatanaka as Tyler Green and Kirsten Vangsness as Penelope Garcia in CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 2 and or Season 17 – “Piranha” | ©2024 Paramount+/Michael Yarish

Again, Cook and Tyler start to answer simultaneously. This time, Cook says, “Go ahead.”

Tyler relates, “We’ve been talking a lot about how much the show has evolved, hence the name [EVOLUTION]. But I think Season 16 was really about straddling the nature of the old show, the network show, and what we were able to do on Paramount Plus, which is longer episodes, more muscularity, a little bit more authenticity, because it’s streaming. So, the language feels more real, the scenarios feel a little bit more authentic. We’re just able to do more vigorous storytelling. I think Season 17, especially for those of us that came from the Before Times.”

Everyone laughs at this reference to Hatanaka’s comparative newness.

“We very much feel like this is the best season of CRIMINAL MINDS, ever,” Tyler resumes, “because we really, again, because we’ve got this third wind in terms of the way we tell stories, and the risks that we’re taking, and I think it’s a great creative team, and we just talk about it every day, like this is an extraordinary season of not just CRIMINAL MINDS, but of television. I think people are really going to be dazzled by it.”

“I think one of the major differences from the network to the streaming version is the serialized aspect of the show,” Cook elaborates, “and it’s such a cool thing for us to get to do, to really flesh out some of these storylines, and not just to get to see our,” she makes air quotes with her fingers, “‘heroes’ a little bit closer under a microscope, but we get to see Voit, and these psychopaths. We get to examine them a little closer, too. So, I feel like that’s been a really nice gift for us, to get to try the show out in this platform for a little bit.”

When Hatanaka first appeared on CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, the audience thought his Tyler Green was one of these psychopaths. Did he know that he wasn’t one when he came on?

Everyone laughs at the question. Tyler feigns a need for clarification. “A psychopath?”

“That’s still to be determined,” Cook quips. “I mean, are we talking about R.J., or his character?”

“No,” Hatanaka replies. “I did know that he was in a very dark place, because of his sister being murdered. I did know that he’d been after Voit quite a while on his own, and I think that he’s someone who’s spent a lot of time on his own, just because of the pain of his past. This season, coming in here and having the opportunity to consult with this amazing team and this amazing group of people, there are a lot of different sides of Tyler’s personality that show up this year, as opposed to last year, because he’s kind of opening up, and has some great examples in front of him of what life could be. Kirsten [as] Penelope Garcia last year really helped him open up and kind of get out of himself, and learn a lot of lessons. So, this year, he’s on a different trajectory.”

“The lone wolf has to learn how to play nicely with others,” Cook observes.

Tyler opines, “That storyline’s been pretty cool. I’ve only been on the show for seven years now, so many this is a storyline that the show has dealt with previously, dealing with someone who engaged in some pretty dark behaviors in the course of his job, which we all do as profilers, but R.J.’s character is dealing with it in a very different way, and what that means for him as a person, and trying to re-integrate into society, because he’s got a military background. So, that’s been really interesting, I think, to touch on some of those things.”

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION – Season 2 | ©2024 Paramount+

Did Hatanaka know when he first came on that he would become a series regular? “No. They brought me on last year as a recurring, and I was very happy to be there, and very happy to meet everyone, from Day One. Joe Mantegna [who has played BAU profiler David Rossi since Season 3 in 2007] directed my first episode, and I just loved the people, and the opportunity. Obviously, the show is an iconic, amazing, worldwide, world-renowned show. So, the opportunity to become a series regular I’m very happy about. This year was exactly what I wanted, and I’m so happy to have it.”

Tyler has directed four episodes of CRIMINAL MINDS, including “Piranha,” which premieres this week. Cook has directed three episodes, including Season 17’s second episode, “Contagion.” Do they see any differences between directing episodes for the network version and for the streaming edition?

“Yeah,” Cook affirms. “It’s been a really cool experience to get to dabble in both. Obviously, the network experience was my first, and I’m forever grateful for that opportunity that has spun me into this new love of mine, which is directing. But with the streaming version, there’s just a longer leash, I guess you could say. You get to flex those creative muscles a little bit more. We were able to design some really cool shots, just with the camera moves. Everything just feels elevated.”

Tyler nods assent.

“It truly does feel more like mini-feature films every week,” Cook concludes. “Not to say that the CBS version wasn’t that, it’s just on a different level. It’s a different scope. Everything just looks different to me, and it’s been such a wonderful opportunity to get to do that.”

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Article: CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION: Actors A.J. Cook, Aisha Tyler and Ryan-James Hatanaka on Season 2 of the spin-off on Season 2 – Exclusive Interview

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