Over the course of its first 299 episodes, Criminal Minds has had a lot of great guest stars. Tim Curry, James Van Der Beek, Frankie Muniz, Aubrey Plaza and Jason Alexander come to mind among many, many others. Fortunately, in celebration of the show's upcoming landmark 300th episode, the creative team has decided to bring back another one of its famous faces: Luke Perry.
The handsome, sometimes bearded ex-Beverly Hills, 90210 star and current Riverdale support featured on a very memorable Season 4 episode ("Minimal Loss") in which he played a cult leader named Benjamin Cyrus. He was also referenced in a Season 11 episode ("Entropy"), which is how you know he was more than just your run of the mill villain-of-the-week. Plus, I don't know if you remember the specific episode in question, but his facial hair was on point. Check this out...
Yup. That's a great look, and it's one we should all want to see again, according to EW. Of course, spoiler alert, it's unclear how this whole new appearance is going to happen considering he was shot by Morgan. Does that mean we're going to get a flashback? Does that mean he somehow survived? I don't know, and the producers are not sharing any specifics. Fortunately, it's Criminal Minds we're talking about, and the show has never been shy about weird storylines or unconventional fixes.
One of the keys to Criminal Minds' incredible decade plus run has been its almost remarkable consistency. A lot of its stars have come and gone, but the basic tone and overall subject matter has never really changed. The recipe, like that for Law & Order and others, just works, and by not delving too far into people's personal lives or devoting too much runtime away from cases-of-the-week and toward the personal lives of characters, it hasn't ever gotten away from the basics.
Episode 300 of Criminal Minds will air on CBS at 10 PM on Wednesday, October 3rd. Producers have been teasing additional surprises and appearances from other faces from the show's past. I highly doubt that means we'll get to see Hotch or Jason Gideon or even Elle, but that doesn't mean we won't be able to have fun with some other surprise faces. Fingers crossed for Reid's mom or Garcia's ex Kevin Lynch. Actually, let's root for Morgan. We'll all be happy with Morgan.
