Jennifer Love Hewitt is leaving "Criminal Minds."
After joining the CBS drama as a series regular for season 10, the actress has decided not return for return for season 11 - which made Wednesday night's episode of "Criminal Minds" her last.
[SPOILER ALERT!] During last night's episode, Hewitt's character, Kate, saw her daughter and friend kidnapped. In the end, Kate, who is also having a baby, hands over her resignation letter and decides to take time off to focus on her unborn child.
"Criminal Minds" showrummer Erica Messer confirmed Hewitt's exit from the show with Entertainment Weekly. Messer said Hewitt, who is pregnant with her second child, would not be able to make a commitment to the show when it begins filming season 11 in July, which is also when the actress is expected to give birth.
"I didn't know she was pregnant until really the end of the calendar year, which was still early, although we had already broken the finale at that point," Messer said. "There was definitely some going back and having more finality to her character. We had already set up that the episode would be about Kate and her family and the horrific thing that happens with her daughter Meg being abducted. That was already in play, but what wasn't in play was writing her out by any means. We went back into the writers' room and discussed options of how to do that."
Messer told EW that they write the truth about Hewitt and her character, saying, "She's having another baby. Although on the show she hasn't had, physically, two babies, she does have two kids: She has Meg, who she's been raising since she was an infant, and we wrote in that the character is going to have another baby. There was an opportunity there to write towards the truth. Jennifer wanted to be able to give this second baby everything she gave her first, and that's taking time off to be a full-time mom."
Adding, "We wrote to that, and that's how season 10 ends. It's a bittersweet idea of, 'Life is full of choices and they define who you are.' She makes the decision to leave the team for a while. It's really lovely and real, not only because it was happening off-screen, but because I know those things happen in real life too."
As for whether Hewitt's character might return for season 12, Messer said anything's possible.
"Yeah, we left it open creatively," she explained. "Hotch says, 'You always have a place here,' and we believe that wholeheartedly off-screen as well. It was a great season and we had a lot of fun with her. One of the great things about our show is you can leave those doors open. We rarely kill anyone. That opportunity for paths to cross again is definitely open. Everybody is on board with that. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, so it's hard to predict two years from now what's going on - or a year from now. But it's something we'd definitely creatively keep open."
