Criminal Minds season 12: Reid’s prison stay; Tatum O’Neal guest stars

On Wednesday night’s new episode of Criminal Minds, you are going to be offered up the opportunity to see how once Spencer Reid copes with his new circumstance of being behind bars. He’s going to meet a wide array of new faces including Lost alum Harold Perrineau in the role of Calvin Shaw. You’ll be seeing a good bit of him over the course of the coming weeks, so be aware of that in advance.

Meanwhile, we can also tell you now that there is one other notable guest star coming in Oscar winner Tatum O’Neal. The actress will appear on the March 15 episode entitled “Resistance Is Futile” (hey, a reference to the Borg on this show), where she’ll be playing the part of Miranda White, a woman who comes forward with information that could help them solve the mystery of an UnSub known as a “bone crusher.” This appearance doesn’t appear to be directly related to what you’re going to be seeing with Reid, but it’s still worth noting that the show is doing a good job of recruiting big names at this point in the run.

So what about the story for the remainder of the episode? Well, the thing that we can tell you about that for the time being is that Reid is going to still be prison by the time this episode airs. That doesn’t mean that you should give up hope by any means, but this is not going to be a storyline that follows the typical Criminal Minds pattern of ending soon so that the writers can move onward into other things.

Ultimately, we will get a chance soon to see where the Reid story goes from here, but the hope clearly is that eventually, the team figures out a way to free him. The BAU better be happy that they hired both Luke Alvez and Walker now! We wonder on a meta level if these new characters were introduced with the advance knowledge that the team would need extra help with Reid locked up.

If you’re curious, you can head over here to get a further preview for Wednesday night’s new Criminal Minds episode!

Let us know in the comments what you want to see from Reid! (Photo: CBS.)