‘Criminal Minds’ season 12: Thomas Gibson thanks fans as Hotch’s fate remains unclear

This past episode of “Criminal Minds” was the last one to feature Thomas Gibson as an onscreen presence, and in the wake of everything that happened with his removal from the show, and also not having much of a send-off at all, he continues to take the high road on social media.

If you look below, you can see Gibson’s message to fans after they worked to send him thousands of thank-you messages in the wake of his final episode of the show. It’s the right way for him to handle it, and hopefully, there will be some other opportunities to see him on television down the road. We said it before, and it certainly bears repeating now that we have a rather-hard time envisioning a scenario in which Gibson is gone from the medium for a substantial period of time at all.

The real question that remains now is how the show decides to write him out. Hotch is not mentioned at all in the preview for Wednesday’s episode, but that does not mean that the episode will shy away from the issue altogether. One thing that does remain rather interesting is that CBS has opted against giving us further information on episodes beyond this one for the time being. Typically, they release synopses more than one week out, and you could see this as evidence that there is something that happens Wednesday that makes them want to keep the following episode under wraps.

All we can continue to say is that while we all may have specific opinions on Gibson’s firings and the allegations on-set, the reality remains that his character should not be punished for it. Hopefully, there is some sort of plan in place to give him a tribute.

For now, all we can say is that Wednesday’s episode does mark the return of Paget Brewster as Emily Prentiss, which we do remain excited to see.