Linda Barnes has been weakening the abilities of the BAU for weeks now on "Criminal Minds," but the team finally put an end to that. Barnes had previously spent weeks reassigning team members or forcing them to retire. However, none of that would work tonight.
Barnes made herself team leader and in charge of the remaining BAU members, but pretty much sidelined them, denying them the opportunity to solve cases. J.J., Simmons and Alvez were forced to sit quietly as innocent lives were being taken by unsubs.
Barnes' actions forced team to go rogue
Before all this happened, Barnes sent Garcia back to the Cyber Crimes Unit, where she discovered that one of her unsubs was collecting photos of women that were being kidnapped and murdered.
Garcia sent this information off to her former BAU colleagues and later regrouped with them to covertly try and capture the unsub. The team crept around at night, knowing if Barnes caught them, they would all be fired, but once again being united kept them going.
Midway through the episode, it looked like the team was stuck and destined to fail as they realized they needed access to an old case file of Barnes. The team believed the unsub was tied to that case. J.J. was forced to reveal that the team was investigating the case, which caused Barnes to fire her and take her badge. However, the kidnapping of a senator’s daughter added more flame to the fire, which added more profile to the case.
Senator demands Linda Barnes leave BAU alone
With the help of Garcia’s computer skills and Prentiss’ brains, the team was able to locate the senator’s daughter before she died from an overdose. The senator was extremely grateful, so he worked at getting Prentiss reinstated, allowing her the opportunity to get rid of Barnes and hire J.J.
back. The senator was very angry upon hearing how Barnes was interfering in the team’s work and therefore demanded the FBI Director stay out of the BAU unit’s way.
This episode led Barnes to become one of the most hated characters in the show’s history. “Criminal Minds” fans ultimately lost it after Barnes passed over two cases that J.J.
presented to her, claiming they were too divisive or the media would not care. Barnes told JJ, they needed cases that would unite the public. Barnes told J.J. her job is to make the FBI look good for the public. The team is united once again, and are ending on a happy note. Now we wait and see what their next case will bring as the world continues to be a dark and twisted world.
