The "Criminal Minds" Season 10 finale aired Wednesday, May 6 and fans got a shock when they found out that Jennifer Love Hewitt's character Kate Callahan won't be coming back for Season 11.
Hewitt has a very good reason for stepping down from her tv show. Like her character, the "Party of Five" actress is also pregnant and decided to take a step back to focus on her family and bond with her upcoming new baby, E! News reported.
In the season 10 finale, Hewitt's character, FBI Agent Kate Callahan, saw her niece Meg and friend Markayla kidnapped by a human trafficking ring. After her team had rescued them Kate tearfully handed in her resignation, explaining that she took a year off to raise Meg after her sister and brother-in-law died on 9/11 and now wants to do the same for her unborn child.
Now, executive producer Erica Messer has revealed that the story finale was not the original plan, but the writers worked on it to fit the facts.
Messer revealed that Hewitt waited until the very end of 2014 to tell the creative team that she was pregnant and is actually due this summer.
"I didn't know she was pregnant until really the end of the calendar year, which was still early, although we had already broken the finale at that point. There was definitely some going back and having more finality to her character," Messer told Entertainment Weekly.
"We had already set up that the episode would be about Kate and her family and the horrific thing that happens with her daughter Meg being abducted. That was already in play, but what wasn't in play was writing her out by any means. We went back into the writers' room and discussed options of how to do that," she added.
With the knowledge that Hewitt was pregnant, the creative team changes the plot to give Hewitt time to bond with her baby in the same way as with her first child.
"There was an opportunity there to write towards the truth. Jennifer wanted to be able to give this second baby everything she gave her first, and that's taking time off to be a full-time mom," explained Messer.
Will Hewitt return to "Criminal Minds" in the future? Well, maybe, according to Fox News.
Messer revealed that the opportunity is "definitely open" if Hewitt wants to return one day. She is due in July.
"Because she's due in July, when we would start shooting season 11, timing-wise there was no way for her to do both, to be able to give that baby everything she wanted to give that baby and still be on our show. We wrote to that, and that's how season 10 ends. It's a bittersweet idea of "life is full of choices and they define who you are," Messer said.
This article was originally published on Fashion & Style.