‘Criminal Minds’ Season 15: Could Jennifer Love Hewitt Return for the Final Season?

Criminal Minds may be coming to an end, but fans are hoping to see some familiar faces return in season 15. The end of the series is like an end of an era and it’s only fitting to include some old favorites in the mix for the final season. A major fan favorite was played by Jennifer Love Hewitt as Kate Callahan. Although she didn’t last long on the series, she was a unique character. So, could Hewitt return to reprise the role? Read on to learn more.

Jennifer Love Hewitt as Kate Callahan

Season 10 was full to the brim about all things Kate and her family. They received a long-winded introduction, which made it seem like Hewitt would be a member of the series for a while, but that wasn’t the case.

Kate has a husband named Chris and a niece that she took in as her own, Meg. Meg’s parents, who were also Kate’s sister and brother-in-law, died in the September 11th attacks. Fans were really enjoying the new dynamic to the show when it was revealed that both Callahan and Hewitt herself were pregnant.

Why did Hewitt leave ‘Criminal Minds’?

Hewitt’s departure is pretty obvious. Showrunner Erica Messer told EW about the choice to make the finale Callahan-focused. Meg gets kidnapped and then rescued in the end, but not before Callahan faces the shock of her life. The team has to track her down and they also uncover a serial killer trafficking ring. Callahan decides to take time for her family, which makes a lot of sense considering everything that went down.

Messer revealed that Hewitt didn’t tell them until the end of 2014 that she was expecting and due that summer. The finale was already in the works, so they ran with it. Hewitt also chose to leave to spend time with her child, and who can blame her?

“Because she’s due in July, when we would start shooting season 11, timing-wise there was no way for her to do both, to be able to give that baby everything she wanted to give that baby and still be on our show,” Messer revealed. “We wrote to that, and that’s how season 10 ends. It’s a bittersweet idea of ‘life is full of choices and they define who you are.’ She makes the decision to leave the team for a while. It’s really lovely and real, not only because it was happening off-screen, but because I know those things happen in real life too.”

Could Kate Callahan return in season 15?

Fans expect to see some old and familiar faces in the upcoming season and hopefully Kate Callahan will be one of them. She wasn’t killed off the show, so she could definitely return. It seems like a no-brainer to bring her back considering how much fans like Kate and her family dynamic. Fans might get to see her and the rest of the family again before the series finally concludes.

Messer spoke with TVLine about another character’s possible return (Aaron Hotchner) and she hinted that she wants to “honor” the series in the last ten episodes. “What I’d love to do is honor the history of the series in some way that is satisfying for all of us, and I don’t know exactly what that will be,” she revealed. “As we’re closing a chapter on the series, I want to be sure that we’re honoring all of those people who were here and the lives that we’ve all been invested in for so long.”

It sounds like we’ll be seeing some familiar faces in the upcoming season. Season 15 of Criminal Minds will premiere its final season on Wednesday, January 8, 2020, at 9 p.m. E.S.T.