‘Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders’: More Than One New Character Will Be Added

Are you ready for two Criminal Minds shows next season? The spinoff, Beyond Borders, will be joining CBS’ primetime lineup in the midseason, but something will be different with the team.

As the Inquisitr previously reported, Criminal Minds introduced a new spinoff with the “Beyond Borders” episode in season 10, and that team is led by CSI: NY‘s Jack Garrett (Gary Sinise). Also on the team was Breaking Bad‘s Anna Gunn as Lily Lambert, the linguist and international law expert. However, while the episode was generally strong, Gunn was the weakest part, despite her character obviously being one the team needs. This team helps American citizens who end up in danger while abroad – the episode focused on a family that was kidnapped at the airport, which linked both Jack’s and Hotch’s teams because of previous cases each had had in the past – and because of that, an international law expert is vital to the team. Watch the two teams going over that case below.

However, as Deadline noted when announcing Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders had been picked up by CBS, Gunn was not listed in the cast. Sinise, Daniel Henney, and Tyler James will all be returning in their roles. This means that the potential arc that was obviously set up, of Lily’s brother’s case, with Hotch offering to look at it with a fresh set of eyes, already setting up the potential for a crossover, is more than likely going to be dropped. You can rewatch their conversation about that below.

So what does this mean about the makeup of the Beyond Borders team when the show premieres in the midseason? It means that there will be more than one new character, as CBS president Nina Tassler revealed to TVLine.

“Gary [Sinise] is sort of larger than life and [as Jack Garrett] he filled a lot of the same [needs as Gunn’s character]. But we’re actually going to be adding a couple of new characters [that] speak more to the needs of the franchise.”

So expect the team to be expanded, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise since it was already small. The only ones in the field from the team were Sinise’s Jack, Gunn’s Lily, and Henney’s Matt, with James’ Monty, the team member left behind stateside, to not only serve as the tech expert but to talk to the family members as well, a role that Garcia does not need to fill on Criminal Minds.

Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders will be part of CBS’ midseason lineup next year.

[Image via CBS]