‘Criminal Minds’ season 11 spoilers: ‘Awake’ will continue Dirty Dozen story

There are many times over the years that we’ve given “Criminal Minds” a hard time for not tapping into more of what we’ve felt is its natural potential. Why limit yourself so much to standalone plotlines? While we do understand very much that this is a show where syndication is key, we’re more than ten years into it at this point. It is nice to see more of a serialized story with some various elements that play out over time. It’s always nice to see a show go bold and try to mix things up a little bit, and at the moment the CBS procedural is doing that with the Dirty Dozen.

For some more evidence of this, take a look at the synopsis below for the November 18 episode entitled “Awake”:

“The BAU hunts an UnSub in Phoenix who is kidnapping victims and depriving them of sleep. Also, Hotch and Garcia deal with the threat from the underground hitman group, the ‘Dirty Dozen.'”

We get the sense that there are no plans to cease the Dirty Dozen story anytime soon, which means that it could carry over into next year. Personally, we’d like to see it be picked up and discussed at a number of different points over the course of the season before coming to something resembling a resolution at the end of the season. It will give this story some congruence, which may be a good thing given how many different elements have been at play this season, especially with the departure of Jennifer Love Hewitt and with AJ Cook being on maternity leave for several weeks.

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