In the sixth episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 17, “Message in a Bottle,” Prentiss (Paget Brewster) and JJ (A.J. Cook) finally got to clear the air after the latter learned the former had kept her in the dark about BAU Gate, a dark web site using her image in deepfaked porn.
Both women ended up high—JJ accidentally consumed Prentiss’ edibles—with the team’s Unit Chief (at the time, on restricted duty) admitting she was thinking about her future with the FBI. Her plan was to quit, after crossing a line with Voit (Zach Gilford); she couldn’t figure out why she was fighting so hard to win the battle of good versus evil, so she wanted to go out on her own terms if her career with the FBI was truly coming to an end. Even after finding out she was reinstated, she wanted to resign.
Prentiss reminded JJ of everyone who had come and gone since they met (Gideon, Morgan, Hotch) and argued that the longer you stay at this job, the odds are you’ll lose yourself or someone you love or your sense of honor. It just takes and takes and takes. It was when JJ’s faced with the question of what the job gave her that she revealed that she knew about BAU Gate—and she wished Prentiss had told her. Prentiss knew she could have handled it, but she didn’t think she should have had to, seeing it as her job to protect the team. But what JJ needed was honesty.
JJ was also the one to point out that while those other agents have left, she and Prentiss were kicked out but still here (a nice reference to Cook and Brewster both being let go during the original run, then brought back). “We are stronger than anyone, anyone gives us credit for,” JJ said. “We don’t quit. We don’t. I didn’t quit on you in Paris.” (Another great reference.) “You didn’t quit on me after my miscarriage,” she added. “This job takes a lot, but you know what it gives? It gives me you. And you know what, after all of this, if you still want to go, I’ll support you, I will, always.”
That was a scene that Brewster enjoyed doing, she tells TV Insider, especially after the two women “were separated from each other as friends because Prentiss felt she had to do it as her job to not let JJ know about BAUgate because—it’s in the script, what good does it do? And I have to protect… But of course she did know. And the fact that JJ didn’t hold that over Prentiss’ head, she just used it as a way to reach out and say, ‘It’s us. Can we reconnect? Can we be here for each other besides the job?’”
It was a “beautifully written” scene, says Brewster, who can’t say enough good things about her costar. “A.J. is so great. She’s just so much fun. They all are. Everyone in the cast is brilliant to work with. But she just blew my mind. That confession towards the end, sitting at the kitchen table, I remember shooting that scene and Paget looking at AJ going, ‘Oh my God, you are so good.’ She’s really so talented. And it was so moving. I loved that episode.”
The star notes that it was a bottle episode. “Everything had to take place on the stage—no locations, no new guest stars,” she explains. “It was like, what wardrobe do we have? How can we save money? And it turned out brilliant. I thought it was a great episode. We were all so excited about that. It wasn’t a hindrance being told, you can’t go out in the field and we just need to contain one episode. And it happens all the time. Basically every episode of Community was a bottle episode. But what our writers did with that was really exciting. They were presented with this challenge, and I think they really rose to it.”
As for playing Prentiss high—she introduced JJ to the wonders of eating chips with chopsticks to keep her fingers clean—”I don’t have a lot of experience with pot or edibles, so I was like, am I pulling this off?” Brewster admits with a laugh. “I was asking for advice from people about that.”
Criminal Minds: Evolution, Season 17 Finale, Thursday, August 1, Paramount+