According to Deadline, Josh Stewart will not be returning to Criminal Minds: Evolution. Stewart made the announcement through social media today. Stewart is a long time cast member, having played the character Will LaMontagne Jr.
Deadline said that Stewart posted, “sadly, my days of playing Will LaMontagne Jr. are over, you guys have been the absolute best.”
Stewart originally appeared in the original Criminal Minds series on CBS, coming into the picture in season two. He became a recurring character, eventually marrying the character of J.J. Moreau. Stewart then continued his lifespan on the show by appearing in nine out of ten episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution, said Deadline. At one point, he even experienced a cancer scare.
Showrunner Erica Messer spoke to Deadline about the plot line, saying, “Next [season], hopefully, he’s going to be OK, but he’s not necessarily out of the woods forever.” Along with this, she also touched on the stigma of the storyline, saying, “It’s based on a true-life illness that we wanted to honor.”
According to Deadline, Criminal Minds: Evolution is “an expansion of the original CBS series that ran from 2005-2020. In the first season, the FBI’s elite team of criminal profilers comes up against an UnSub who has used the pandemic to build a network of other serial killers. As the world opens back up and the network goes operational, the team must hunt them down, one murder at a time.”
Deadline reported that there were many original cast members that were seen throughout the first season of the show, including Joe Mantegna (Baby’s Day Out), A.J. Cook (Final Destination 2), Kirsten Vangsness (Kill Me, Deadly), Aisha Tyler (Archer), Adam Rodriguez (CSI: Miami) and Paget Brewster (Friends).
The second season of Criminal Minds: Evolution has yet to officially premiere, Deadline cited.