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‘Criminal Minds’ Season 12 Takes Hotch Out Permanently, Brings In New BAU Chief [Spoilers]

By Alexandria Ingham
Published on: 02:35 PST, Nov 17, 2016

For those who have been hoping that CBS, ABC, and the Criminal Minds Season 12 showrunners would listen to your #NoHotchNoWatch boycott, you will be disappointed with this news. Hotch has now officially resigned from the BAU in this week’s episode. There’s a new BAU chief in town, and most fans like the idea.

Earlier this week, though, Criminal Minds lied to us. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the writers stated they hadn’t worked out how to permanently remove Hotch from the show. He had been sent on a special assignment, which was only supposed to be temporary. This was written in after Thomas Gibson’s initial suspension from the show and would likely take up two episodes.

Fans were okay with that. They weren’t completely happy, but they could deal with two weeks of no Hotch in Criminal Minds Season 12. But days later, fans heard that Gibson had been fired by the two studios that handle the show. While the show is aired on CBS, ABC Studios has a stake in the show and decided Gibson had three strikes and was now out.

That decision started the #NoHotchNoWatch boycott, and the showrunners admitted that they didn’t know what to do with Hotch. They weren’t entirely certain how to write him out permanently after putting him on a special assignment.

It seems that the “admission” was really a lie and possibly done with the hope of getting fans to tune in to find out what would happen to Hotch. It may have also been a lie in the hope that something could be worked out to bring Gibson back to the show. However, Gibson is definitely not going to return to Criminal Minds Season 12.

For those who aren’t watching the show but are interested in the way Hotch’s character will be handled, he was officially taken out of the show this week, according to E! Online. Rossi told the rest of the BAU that he had lied about the special assignment that Hotch had been sent on. And Hotch wasn’t taking a vacation, either. Hotch and his son have gone into witness protection.

The exit of Hotch in Criminal Minds Season 12 has been linked to the overall story of the escaped fugitives. Peter Lewis has now targeted Hotch’s son, Jack. With Jack’s life in danger, Hotch has chosen to resign from the BAU and keep his son safe instead. It is a storyline that will make sense to a lot of fans, and had it happened under better circumstances, the boycott may not have happened. Unfortunately, with Gibson’s firing, fans aren’t happy at all with the current situation.

The saving grace for many is the new chief. Rather than bringing a new character into Criminal Minds Season 12, one of the BAU has been promoted. Some fans thought Rossi (Emily Prentiss) would be given the promotion, and she officially accepted it at the end of this week’s episode.

Prentiss’ promotion was foreshadowed after her return. The credits when the team stands together has Prentiss in Hotch’s place, suggesting that she is the most senior agent out of everyone else. It makes sense now that she is there since she is the leader of the group.

It turns out that Hotch’s request was for Prentiss to take over the team. So far, the decision to make Prentiss chief has been taken positively on Twitter. While there are still many fans boycotting Criminal Minds Season 12, those who are still watching are excited for the change in leadership. Females especially are rejoicing the fact that the show has a female chief. It’s been a long time since the loss of Erin as Hotch’s boss.

What do you think of the decision to make Prentiss the new unit chief? Are you sticking with the Criminal Minds Season 12 boycott?

[Featured Image by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images]

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