TV Underdogs: How can ‘Criminal Minds’ season 11 use Shemar Moore’s Morgan further?

So far on “Criminal Minds” season 11, we’ve seen many characters go through hell and back. Garcia found herself terrified of the Dirty Dozen, while there was another episode that featured Reid in an impossible position staring Cat Adams in the face.

Now, let’s talk about Derek Morgan. Shemar Moore is consistently a real shining light on this series, but at the same time, this season has not been the most in-depth for his character … at least not yet. Diehard fans of the show are going to be aware already that he has a big arc coming up, but even if you do know that, isn’t there still some interesting territory to be explored in this edition of our TV Underdogs series? (Also, we have no idea why we used the attached photo; it’s just fun!)

Why he’s an underdog – In some ways, we consider all of the members of the BAU to be Underdogs in their own right. Every week they have to track down a needle in a haystack, where they are at a given moment, and stop them before they do something else terrible. Even with a lot of resources at their disposal this is no easy task, and Derek in particular manages to do it while still maintaining his confidence and his swagger. Sometimes the job gets to him like it would anyone, but he perseveres.

Why don’t we see more of him – Well, technically we see quite a bit of him, but so far this season he just hasn’t had the opportunity to shine too much. One of the primary reasons for that may just be that as we mentioned, there is a big storyline coming for him. There has to be a little bit of everything to go around for the cast of this show, so during the first part of season 11 we saw people like Garcia and newcomer Tara Lewis have some opportunities to shine.

Ways to see him more – The biggest thing we’d love to see for Derek is getting a further window into who he was before the BAU, and how doing this job has changed his life and how he thinks of other people. We’re always going to be a big fan of seeing some more of where people come from, and for Morgan in particular we just want to see more of his influencers … or what would happen in the event that someone from his past was not who he thought they were. Shemar is great working alongside guest stars, and that’s why we are excited that he will share some screen time moving forward with Danny Glover.

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