Criminal Minds Update – Patinkin Suicide

Here’s another update for those of us that also enjoy “Criminal Minds”, which I think is quite a few. I wrote about rumors earlier this summer (Mandy Patinkin Leaves Criminal Minds) regarding the future of Mandy Patinkin’s character on Criminal Minds.

It turns out most of the rumors weren’t true, except for the fact that he is leaving the show. If you watched the season premiere this past week you know that he appeared on the show with some other cast members and it centered around him writing about his leaving the team and not being able to maintain his life with the job anymore. Much of the anxiety came from his girlfriend getting killed.

I was surprised as I watched the episode because of him appearing with the other cast members for the episode. It turns out that the episode was filmed earlier and was scheduled to run shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings, so the episode was pulled. They went back in and edited the episode, inserting the journal scenes of Mandy’s character into the plot. It was done so well I wouldn’t have ever thought that if I’d not read it.

Getting back to the working relationship with his fellow cast members, it may not have been what we thought, unless they’re just trying to cover-up some of the drama involved.

There have been a lot of stories floating around about Mandy Patinkin’s departure from CBS’ Criminal Minds. That he’s only going to be in one scene of the show to wrap up his storyline, that his costars didn’t like him. Turns out neither of those stories are true.

Co-star A.J. Cook says that Patinkin has actually been phoning all of his Criminal Minds castmates and explaining to them what happened. Cook says that the cast didn’t know what was going on, and now that they know they “just want him to be happy.”

It appears all is well. That’s not quite true, at least not for me because I loved his character on the show. His name was Jason Gideon, and the fact he’s an excellent actor. I think Joe Mantegna will do a good job filling the role. I just hope they don’t make him be another Gideon. Don’t try that, let him develop his own character and style and run with it.

The final question though is whether Gideon’s going to kill himself, the teaser at the end of the premiere sure makes you think so. I believe he may have contacted one of his colleagues or perhaps even the un-sub that killed his girlfriend up to his cabin.

Photo Credit: I grabbed the photo from the Lymphoma Information Network that has a story about Patinkin working with an actual FBI profiler (Jim Clemente) with cancer that inspired his character development for Jason Gideon.