How Criminal Minds Fans Really Feel About Kate Callahan
First introduced in the debut episode of "Criminal Minds" 10th season, Kate Callahan (Jennifer Love Hewitt) was brought into the BAU team by Aaron Hotch (Thomas Gibson), who felt she would be an asset to the team. An experienced FBI agent, Callahan was a member of the FBI's sex crimes unit for eight years with a speciality in undercover operations. She bonded quickly with the rest of the team and became a valued investigator over the course of the 10th season before leaving to focus on raising her baby with her family.
But while certainly appreciated by her fellow Behavioral Analysis Unit investigators, it seems that the character of Kate Callahan was slightly less beloved by "Criminal Minds" fans. In a recent Reddit poll, it was revealed that 130 of the 261 respondents liked the character, 27 disliked, and 104 didn't feel strongly either way. Let's take a look at how "Criminal Minds" fans really feel about one Kate Callahan.
Criminal Minds fans had mixed reactions
Some fans attributed the problems with Kate's character to the "Criminal Minds" writers. Reddit user cool_banana_split wrote "The sarcastic jokes they wrote for this character were so bad, I cringe every time. Don't think she was the worst but overall just didn't care for her, I wish Alex Blake would've stayed on for longer." User fjall_persia thought the issue might be due to a contrast in acting styles: "I like Jennifer Love Hewitt on 911, but I don't think her acting style is suitable for CM which puts me off Kate Callahan."
It's true that new characters introduced to long-running dramatic series like "Criminal Minds" do take time to find their footing, particularly as the writers flesh out the character and work out what makes them tick as part of the larger ensemble. Over the course of the 10th season, we came to know Kate, her husband Chris, and their niece Meg as she worked to balance her home life and her commitment to the BAU. It was revealed during the season that Kate had lost her sister Lizzie and her brother-in-law Joe during the September 11 attack on the Pentagon and were raising their niece as best they could. The family dynamic and the approach of the birth of her baby with Chris were avenues for potential new stories that went unexplored.
Kate Callahan has a case of bad timing
At the end of the 10th season of "Criminal Minds," Jennifer Love Hewitt made the decision to leave the series as a result of her second pregnancy (via Entertainment Weekly), and so Kate was written off the show. As a result, the audience and the series' creators never truly got the chance to see where Kate could have gone as a character. "I thought they tried too hard to make her relatable but overall she was just fine. She fit in with the team well enough but didn't have that much to make her stand out. Maybe the character could have been better developed had JLH stayed longer though" wrote Reddit user DansoRoboto.
Given that 104 people in the poll voted that they didn't feel strongly about the character, but just didn't care for her overall, it's clear that, while Kate may have had her fans, the character just wasn't around long enough to hit her stride.