Criminal Minds Season 14 Will End With an Emotional, Unexpected Twist

Wedding bells are in the air on Criminal Minds as Rossi (Joe Mantegna) prepares to walk down the aisle. But before the team can get to happy celebrations, they must solve a series of murders occurring in Los Angeles.

TV Guide's exclusive clip of the finale reveals that an unsub is killing his victims in the parking lot, but an eyewitness account goes directly against the profile the team has been working on. The team is under the gun to figure who is behind the big murders before Rossi is set to say, "I do."

Showrunner Erica Messer assured us that Rossi will inevitably make it to his big day, but warned that fans should buckle up for an "emotional" cliffhanger different from what the show has done in the past. Unlike last season, which left two BAU members in severe jeopardy, the hearts of a couple members will be thrown for a loop with whatever the creative team has planned. Messer teased more of what the finale has in store for TV Guide below.

What was your objective going into the season 14 finale?
Erica Messer: We knew that we wanted to make it splashy, but I think also we always thought a wedding would be nice. Rossi was due for that given his relationship with Crystal having reignited... Okay, that's like the happy ending to it, but we know we're coming back to another 10 episodes. Instead of doing something that maybe we would have considered in the past like everybody leaves the wedding and there's a car accident or there's an attack or something like that, let's do more of an emotional end to the episode. Still, it's a cliffhanger moment. It's just not in the traditional realm of what bad guy is after the team this week, right? We also feel like getting toward the end of our series run, there are relationships that have existed and that people have cheered on for so long, and we just really wanted to explore those in a deeper way.

Does that mean that we can expect a relatively happy ending at least for this season finale?
Messer: Yes, relatively.

We've been having monsoon weather this month in Los Angeles How did that affect plans for the episode?
Messer: It forced our lovely outdoor backyard wedding to be moved to The Ebell. So, it was like the stress of a real wedding on the Friday before we were shooting on Monday. We were like, "Oh my God, we're not gonna be able to use this backyard. It's already kind of flooded and it's only the first day of rain. It's gonna rain three more days, what are we gonna do?" And it was racing around Los Angeles to try to find a Rossi appropriate wedding venue. And thankfully we landed on the Ebell in Mid-Wilshire area, where I had been to weddings before, and that became our safe haven in this crazy, much needed rain.

What are you most excited for fans to see in the finale?
Messer: I think I'm most excited for them to see the interaction of this team, and not just in their ability to solve these cases and find out what makes the bad guys tick, but also in discovering more about what makes [themselves] tick.

Criminal Minds Season 14 finale airs Wednesday at 10/9c on CBS.

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