Kirsten Vangsness Teases Garcia in the Field as Season 19 Ends (Exclusive)

With just two episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 19 to go, the BAU hasn’t exactly been having many wins against its major UnSub, The Fan (Justin Kirk). Is that about to change?

“I stay blissfully unaware until I don’t have to,” Kirsten Vangsness, who stars as Penelope Garcia, tells TV Insider. Below, she discusses what’s still to come with The Fan, Garcia’s relationships with JJ (A.J. Cook) and Rossi (Joe Mantegna), and much more.

The BAU is now privy to the fact that The Fan visited Voit (Zach Gilford) in prison, but they’re once again one step behind it seems because of what happens to Laura (Jessi Case) at the end of this episode. They still don’t know much about this guy either because they don’t even know his name yet because he went under Joshua Ryan. What’s Garcia’s take on The Fan at this point?

Kirsten Vangsness: I think the show works because we’re all like, “Let’s work on this over here. This’ll take care. Let’s work. This’ll be fine. Oh, no!” So I’m not at that part yet. We’re just in the like, “We got things.” You know how that works out, and it never does, and then you’re like, “Oh my God.” And in the meantime, everyone in the audience gets to see all of that stuff that’s happening with [The Fan and Voit], which is so crazy interesting. They’re both so collaborative with all the departments and things and ways. And then the way that they work together, it’s creepy and delicious at the same time. And some of the sets, it was just so cool. In a weird way, I want to say it’s cool, but they built the prison set at work, the sound stages, and they had this incredible library. This prison library is really something else. We kept up one of the murals. It’s quite nice. But yeah, I stay blissfully unaware until I don’t have to, which we have not gotten to yet.

What can you say about what’s coming up in these last two episodes with The Fan? Because the BAU has so much they need to learn about this guy still.

Well, that’s what makes it really fun is that you’re getting little pieces, little pieces, and then what you want, I think, is a whole 85-course meal with a cheese plate and different chocolates and whatever at the end. And that really does come. There’s a lot that happens. We have some fantastic guests that we’ve already had. I mean our guest stars, this season in particular — Meredith Salenger, Paul F. Tompkins, Connor Storrie, Yvette Nicole Brown, the fan. We have all these different people that came in and just shone their light in so many different ways. I feel so fortunate to work there. I think that the fans should feel really fortunate because it’s fun. And there’s a lot. Garcia gets to do a lot in the last couple episodes.

Michael Yarish/Paramount+

Speaking of the guest stars, Justin Kirk as The Fan is so good. I love that casting.

So good! Him and Paget [Brewster] are really good friends, and me and him are pals, too. And we’ve been [wanting to have him on]. And then he’s always working, right? And then it just worked out and then it was like, “Here it is. It’s happening. There he is. He’s walking on set.” And it was really fun because I was doing a show that I wrote called Outdated at the Hollywood Fringe last year, and he came and the night he came, the writing staff had come, and this is when they knew he was going to be there and he hadn’t gotten to meet everybody. And it was a really fun way for everybody to have this family moment because we really are a family. That’s how we’re able to create what we’re doing in such a shorthand and all of that. So it was a really fun. I have a picture of all of us of all of them there. It’s very, very cute.

Can you say which member of the team has the most significant conversation with The Fan coming up?

I think that Prentiss — I think that a lot of people get airtime with him if memory serves. There are some things that occur.

How about you? Do we see you with Justin Kirk on screen?

In a peripheral manner, yes.

I have to say, I’ve loved the Garcia and JJ scenes we’ve been getting this season, from Garcia helping JJ with the move to putting together the party for Henry this episode. And also, it’s wild that Henry is old enough for college because I remember the episode when he was born.

I know. Her walking in on Mr. Wednesday. We’ve gotten a lot to do.

Yeah. And even today’s episode has the callback to that episode when Henry was born because the mention of Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Caltech, which was nice to see. And it feels like those scenes are just a nice break for Garcia and JJ away from all the darkness of their jobs, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think that I wouldn’t have a job if we didn’t have that in our show and our show needs that. And so it keeps that circulation going of, we’re a family, all those little interstitial things that are happening. And I think that that’s what makes the show really special because we’ve had so much time with these characters so you do really care about what they’re doing. And it’s so interesting how they write it because you’re like, “Oh, it’s half a page of a scene.” But it stays in your memory as you’re watching all this other stuff. So, you can do pages and pages and pages of this mystery, but then you know this thing from just this half. It’s cool.

Michael Yarish/Paramount+

Speaking of being like a family, it’s like family are the ones who can hurt you the most. So the Garcia and Rossi stuff that we got this season, because I’ve always loved that dynamic from those early days when he first rejoined the BAU and everything. But it hurt to see them at odds, I have to say.

Oh, it’s so painful.

But it led to those really sweet scenes as well. So just talk about working with Joe on those.

I’m getting whole-body chills. Whole-body chills right now. I could just not speak and just stare at you, and you would know what it’s like. He is just such a human being with so much depth and humor and kindness and ease. He has a coolness and a kindness that comes from that kind of cool confidence that’s so easy. And from the minute I met him, because you’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’s Joe Mantegna. It’s Tony Award-winning. It’s Fat Tony. Oh my God.” All these different things. And just being like, “Hey, you want to run lines?” “OK.” I have these memories of walking around set with Joe while we’re rehearsing something like that. And it’s like we’re sharing some celery sticks because there’s too many celery sticks in this thing. And you’re like, “Pinch me, I’m eating celery sticks with Joe Mantegna.” You’re like, “What has happened?” But we always have such a good time together, even when those things, it’s so fun to do because you’re offloading all this emotion and all this stuff and you’re trying to make this thing work and then cut and then jokey jokey, ha-ha-ha. And then, OK, here we go again, here we go again. The company I get to keep. I mean, I was just there last night, and we were all there until, I don’t know, 11 o’clock at night, and it’s just bliss. I don’t know. It’s a very lucky place to be.

It was great to see Matthew back briefly last season as Reid. But I admit I miss the Garcia and Morgan dynamic. Have you spoken to Shemar Moore recently? What do you think of the chances are of him returning again or would you want to go over to his S.W.A.T. spinoff? Because that could be fun, too.

Yeah. I mean, never say never about anything literally in the world, but I think that the Hondo of it all has been so massively successful that obviously that’s the evolution of Shemar and what Shemar does. And so I feel like that’s where he’s going and what he is doing, which is great. And there’s so much of Morgan and Garcia that happened before that I do understand. I feel it, too. We saw each other at a basketball game, I don’t know, about a year ago, a little less than a year ago. And I mean, we text and stuff like that, but in terms of having face time with each other, it was very, very quick. But I got to meet Frankie and all that. And we didn’t know it was going to happen. It was just sort of like, “Oh my gosh, you’re here, you’re here.” And so we got to hug each other and whatever. And it’s instantly… We have an instant, which we always had from the minute we met until now. So you don’t know. The world is big and weird. That’s what I know.

What can you tease about how the season ends for Garcia to set up what we’ll see from her next season?

Oh, there’s some harrowing nonsense that happens. She is out on the field because it is necessary.

I love that. I love when she’s in the field.

I know, I do love it. I don’t know what’s going on when it’s happening. I’m acting like we’re at camp and everybody else is like, “Oh, we always have to do this. ” I’m like, “Look at us out here!” So she does get to do some things. I had to learn some stuff. And I feel like the thing about Garcia that I know about in parts of me, where we are similar, is that things can be new and she can grow from it, but it’s not like it’s going to harden her. It’s not like it’s going to make her jaded. It might deepen something a little, but she’s got that kind of personality where it’s like she’s not going to suddenly be like, now I can take all this violence. That’s not going to happen. But it was a good time. I think that people are going to really love — I think it really sets people up for wanting more of the show and I’m happy about that.

Yeah, I mean 20 seasons, which congratulations on that. So well-deserved.

Unbelievably, incredibly delightful.

Are you going to write another episode soon?

Well, not in this season. I’m very committed to the acting of this show and I’m very committed to our writers. We have a lot of writers that were PAs and writers’ assistants that have moved up and they know this show so, so well. And I wouldn’t throw out the idea of co-writing with someone. And I do get to still write because a lot of my scenes are very touched by me because I know her so well and I want her to talk in a certain way. We’re different. Garcia’s a sort of know-it-all and she does know it all. And I am very beginner’s mind, which makes us so opposite that we kind of work because I don’t know what the heck is going on and she knows 45 things at the same time that are going on. And so I love doing that and they let me do that very willingly.

But I don’t know. I want to do the best job I can so that I can be part of what keeps the show going because it’s just the greatest fancy day job for so many of us, for the crew. It’s a show in Los Angeles and Los Angeles should have productions here. And I just hope that whatever I’m doing — and my biggest strength is in acting — I want to do that to support the show so that it keeps going.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, Thursdays, Paramount+