Criminal Minds season 13 episode 16 review: Did the team get their jobs back?
It’s been two weeks since Barnes restructured everyone and as far as the tiny team that’s left (Luke, Matt and JJ) Barnes won’t approve any of the cases that they’ve brought to her. She’s sidelining the team the only way she knows how since she can’t completely dismantle the team the way that she wants to.
Ned is the new Garcia at the BAU who rolls in at 11 every day and does the bare minimum when it comes to work. We aren’t exactly sure why Barnes brought this guy in since she mostly wants a case that makes the FBI look good in the public eye and this guy is about as efficient as a snowblower in Southern California.
Garcia is now in cyber crimes in a cubicle with a bunch of other workers and she’s been forced to drop her quirky sense of style because it’s not part of the dress code (ever wonder what Garcia looks like in beige? Now we know). Not only that but she’s only allowed to have three personal items on her desk, forcing her to stifle everything that we love about her.
Emily is now working in Internal Affairs with a creepy smelly co-worker, Spencer is a full time professor now, Rossi is an onset as a writer on a production and Tara is working as a therapist for the department. When Tara meets with Emily, she tells her that they need to find a way to figure this out, because this is all kinds of bad.
When Garcia comes across a case her boss won’t look at it gets sent to JJ and of course Barnes won’t green light it. JJ has had enough of being sidelined and the team gets together deciding that they are going to go rogue on this case even though they all know that it will likely result in them all getting fired… or maybe not. As they dig deeper into this case it seems that it’s possible that this case is linked to a case that Barnes closed and sealed years ago and if that’s the case and the killer is still on the loose they might have enough to get the team back together again and discredit her.
JJ is forced to go to Barnes to ask for that file, but Barnes tells her that access is denied, since there was no murder tied to that case (it was closed as an overdose). JJ is terminated, being forced to hand over her badge and gun. Regardless, JJ was still able to help the team catch the bad guy, and save the life of a daughter of a senator. He pushes that Prentiss be reinstated and she is able to restaff the BAU any way she wants, especially after hearing that JJ was fired for pushing further into the case that Barnes was trying to block. The director has now told Barnes that she is to keep her hands off the BAU and all is well in Whoville!
Related – Check out our preview for episode 17 of Criminal Minds.
CarterMatt Verdict
We were worried after last week’s episode that we were going to be in a situation where our team would be divided for a while before we had them all working on cases again, but seeing them all go rogue to reconnect their family was exactly what we were hoping to see. Barnes is a perfect villain to reunite this family together further as well as united Criminal Minds fans everywhere.
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