Criminal Minds' Paget Brewster Gets a Devil of a Storyline

This week on CBS' Criminal Minds (Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET), Paget Brewster steps front and center when a rogue priest conjures up demons from Prentiss' past. Brewster gave us a preview of the episode, as well as mooned over upcoming guest star Alex O'Loughlin.

TVGuide.com: I hear we're getting a healthy helping of Prentiss this week.
Paget Brewster: Oh my god, it was exhausting! [Laughs] When you're on an ensemble show and you're messing around with everybody every day and you're not in every scene, and then all of a sudden you're in every scene, it's rough. I would not want to be Hugh Laurie.

TVGuide.com: The episode is titled "Demonology" and it says, "Prentiss has a personal connection to one of the victims in a series of deaths with religious overtones." Man, you can almost hear the thunderclap in the background.
Brewster: Basically we discover that a priest is performing exorcisms outside of the church guidelines. Bruce Davison plays a Catholic priest we go to for advice, and he tells us, "Hey, the church knows it's done, but there are certain guidelines you have to follow," and this "renegade" isn't doing that. The question becomes, "Is this guy actually chasing a demon or is this guy a serial killer?" If we get this guy, are we stopping someone from doing a good thing?

TVGuide.com: Bruce Davison is always a fun guest star.
Brewster: That guy is so much fun. One day he asked me, "Are you Brewster as in William Brewster from the Mayflower?' I said, "Yeah, how would you know that?" It turns out that my [ancestor] nursed his through influenza, at Plymouth! He gave me the book Mayflower, so I'm sending him The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.

TVGuide.com: Might "Demonology" change the way we look at Prentiss?
Brewster: Possibly. She has a past and it's a little controversial, as to how she knows this victim, a friend of hers from when she was a teenager in Rome. She asks Hotch, "Can I look into this?" And then she uses her position as a federal agent questionably in seeking out the truth. And there is something that happened to her as a kid that..... Well, it's risky what they wrote. We'll see how people respond.

TVGuide.com: Speaking of Prentiss' past, will we ever learn more about her mother, the ambassador?
Brewster: What's kind of exciting is that at any time, the writers can create more history. But there's nothing else this season involving my mom, who is, of course, Kate Jackson.

TVGuide.com: There was an episode last season where Prentiss offered to become the guardian to a young victim. Do you think we'll revisit her desire to have children?
Brewster: I do, yeah. A lot of the female agents who we have spoken to, they work all the time, and they have a hard time just dating. It's an interesting conundrum. Do they choose this life where they're constantly working and dealing with the darkest side of humanity? All we've ever heard about Prentiss' dating life is, "It's grim out there." [Laughs] But that's what we hear from the female agents we talk to.

TVGuide.com: Of course, a band of fans want her to hook up with Hotch.
Brewster: I know! I didn't realize that fans make these videos on YouTube? A.J. Cook sent me a hilarious one that made it look like Prentiss and J.J. were having a secret lesbian affair. You know, when Hotch was blown up in the SUV, we shot this scene where he's in the hospital and I'm standing next to him, looking at his bleeding ear. Our director came in and said, "Paget, you're looking at Hotch like you're in love with him. It looks really weird." So now, every day, Thomas [Gibson] and I flutter our eyelids at each other.

TVGuide.com: Tell me about some of the guest stars still to come this season.
Brewster: Well, in this episode, I got the best of the best. In addition to Bruce, James Remar (Sex in the City) plays the father of the victim, and Walton Goggins (The Shield) is playing my childhood friend....

TVGuide.com: Have you shot the episode with Alex O'Loughlin (Moonlight) yet?
Brewster: Oh, Alex.... Alex sets all the girls into a twitter. Various departments were vying for Alex's attention. We just finished that this past Saturday morning, at 5:30 am.

TVGuide.com: Did Prentiss get a "moment" with Alex?
Brewster: No, No.... Prentiss had no moments with Alex! [Laughs] He's a cutie-pie! There's a little kid, Jake Cherry (Desperate Housewives), in that episode, and he's amazing too. All our guest stars are extraordinary, which we need to remember. We're there every day, and we have long-standing jokes with the crew, so we need to remember there is someone standing next to us, acting [as if] they're about to die or their child has been murdered. They're working up all this emotion, and we're hiding fart machines from each other. We're the most childish set, and we love it!

TVGuide.com: Are there plans for another explosive season finale?
Brewster: I haven't heard anything yet. We're doing 26 episodes, and most shows do 22, so we should have finished two episodes ago. It's a grind.

TVGuide.com: You need to stop being so damn good!
Brewster: [Laughs] We're just trying to make it to the finish line. I'm sure [the finale] will be shocking, but I don't know if they can blow us up again. They only did that last year so none of could ask for a raise!

Additional reporting by Robyn Ross