New Criminal Minds Season 18 Trailer Features A 'Badass' JJ, Reveals Special Guest Star
Criminal Minds: Evolution not only has set a premiere date for Season 18, but it has already been renewed for a 19th season, by Paramount+.
Season 18 will premiere Thursday, May 8 with one episode, followed by new episodes dropping weekly.
Watch a new trailer above, which kicks off with an always-unsettling "buried alive" scenario... has JJ (franchise vet A.J. Cook) championing her "badass" self... and reveals a guest-starring appearance by the late Linda Lavin, in an undisclosed role.
Season 18 picks up six months after fellow inmates attacked the notorious Sicarius Killer aka Elias Voit (played by Zach Gilford), leading his restless followers on the dark web to begin wreaking havoc all over the country. In order to stop this nefarious group from killing more innocents, the BAU is forced to once again work in concert with an increasingly unpredictable Voit, who of course has his own agenda.
Production on Season 18 wrapped back on Dec. 13, barely four months after filming ramped back up on the series. "We're back, Profilers!" the crime drama's Instagram announced in August 2024, while also sharing seven BTS photos from Season 18 — including a couple of looks at JJ Jareau's return to a side part hairstyle (seen above), which the well-tressed Special Agent last rocked as recently as Season 9 (one Twitter follower told me).
With a premiere date and trailer now in hand, here is everything we know about Criminal Minds Season 18....
7. Who Is Returning for Season 18?
The BAU's elite team of profilers will again be comprised of Emily Prentiss (played by Paget Brewster), David Rossi (Joe Mantegna), "JJ" Jareau (A.J. Cook), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness), Dr. Tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler) and Luke Alvez (Adam Rodriguez).
Also back for another go-round is Ryan-James Hatanaka as onetime person of interest Tyler Green (who last season was veritably deputized as an unofficial BAU helper), and Zach Gilford as captured serial killer Elias Voit.
6. Will Agents Reid or Simmons Return for Season 18?
When the Paramount+ sequel series debuted in November 2022, a line of dialogue established that Matthew Gray Gubler's Spencer Reid and Daniel Henney's Matt Simmons have been away on an assignment. Given that little time has passed over the first two Evolution seasons, away on an assignment they both have stayed.
Until now.
As TVLine reported in mid-December, Gubler — who stars in the CBS drama pilot Einstein, which is waiting on a series order — will return to Criminal Minds for part of one Season 18 episode.
5. Who Is New for Season 18?
Lucifer and Dexter alum Aimee Garcia has a multi-episode arc as Dr. Julia Ochoa, a leading neuropsychiatrist who is "assigned to help a high-profile patient recover from his injury-induced brain trauma."
Is it me, or does that very much sound like she will be treating serial killer Elias Voit, who in the Season 17 finale was released to gen pop under a pseudonym and promptly took a brutal beating once word leaked out about who he really is...?
4. What Is Season 18 About? (And Is There a Time Jump?)
Showrunner Erica Messer told TVLine that whereas not much time passed across Evolution's first two seasons, a full "six months" will have passed when Season 18 opens.
As indicated above by the news of Zach Gilford's return, "we still have Voit in our life," Messer said, but Season 18 promises to be "a bit more hybrid.... This [next] season will feel a little different, where we're solving standalone 'Catch the Bad Guy' cases."
And though Voit is now behind bars, the BAU agents, after two seasons of cleaning up his murderous messes, "don't come up for air," Messer noted. "It's different this season but it's still a lot. More things happen to this team, but it's a different kind of pace, a different exhaustion."
3. How Many Episodes Is Season 18? And When Is the Premiere Date?
Criminal Minds Season 18 will span another 10 episodes, as did Evolution's first two cycles.
Filming wrapped in mid-December 2024 on the new season, which will premiere Thursday, May 8 (with new episodes dropping weekly).
2. Is Criminal Minds Ending With Season 18?
Criminal Minds: Evolution fans got a big surprise last June, when Paramount+ renewed the long-running crime drama for Season 18 ahead of its Season 17 premiere.
At the time that filming wrapped on Season 18, franchise vet Paget Brewster was bullish on getting even more cases to crack, sharing on social media, "We are optimistic we'll get a Season 19."
Indeed, not three months later, Paramount+ officially greenlit Season 19, well ahead of Season 18's premiere date.
1. Where Can I Watch Criminal Minds: Evolution?
A revival of CBS' long-running procedural, Criminal Minds: Evolution streams exclusively on Paramount+. The first two seasons dropped new episodes weekly, on Thursdays.
All 17 seasons of CBS' Criminal Minds and its Evolution follow-up series can be found and streamed on Paramount+.
Want scoop on Criminal Minds: Evolution, or for any other TV show? Shoot an email to InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt's Inside Line!