Why did Spencer leave Criminal Minds? The reason, and what Matthew Gray Gubler has said since
Spencer Reid was in every episode of Criminal Minds for fifteen years, then wasn't in the revival. Here's the explanation the series gave on screen, the different one his co-stars gave in interviews, and what Matthew Gray Gubler has done since.
Spencer Reid never actually left Criminal Minds. He was there for all fifteen seasons and 323 episodes, right through the 2020 CBS finale — which is why his absence from the revival caught people off guard.
Criminal Minds: Evolution launched on Paramount+ on November 24, 2022 with Paget Brewster, Joe Mantegna, A.J. Cook, Kirsten Vangsness, Aisha Tyler, and Adam Rodriguez. Matthew Gray Gubler wasn't in it. Neither was Daniel Henney's Matt Simmons. Reid wasn't written out, killed, or retired — he simply wasn't there, and the show took its time explaining why.
The two explanations
Showrunner Erica Messer's version has always been logistics: schedules didn't line up, and the door was open whenever they did. Brewster's version, given to Looper in 2022 and repeated to The Independent in 2025, is about a career.
Brewster's account: Criminal Minds was Gubler's first real job out of film school, and he did it from 25 to 40 without a break, in years when the show shot 22 to 24 episodes. He wanted to direct. He wanted to do other things.
"Matthew wanted to pursue a bunch of other things," Brewster told The Independent in 2025.
The two aren't in conflict, exactly, but they're not the same answer either, and fans noticed.
What the show said on screen
Evolution kept Reid technically employed. Season 1 left it vague. Then in season 2, episode 7, "Piranha," Emily Prentiss runs through the old roster for Jill Gideon: Hotch is gone, Morgan is gone, Reid is on sabbatical.
Messer later told TV Insider that this wasn't quite the truth in-universe — Reid and Simmons were on special assignment, but "sabbatical felt like the safest thing to say" to someone outside the unit.
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The return, such as it was
Gubler came back in season 3, episode 3, "Time to Say Goodbye," released May 22, 2025. Reid appears at the funeral of JJ's husband Will LaMontagne Jr., sits with Emily, Penelope, and Rossi, and delivers one line to JJ: "I'm always here for you guys." The episode explains that his supervisor knew JJ from the State Department and gave him the morning off.
After three years of speculation, it was a single scene. Gubler's statement at the time was warm and noncommittal — he said he'd cherish any chance to "slip back into my dear friend Spencer's oversized wingtips," big or small.
He did not appear in season 4, which ran May 28 to July 23, 2026. Paramount+ has renewed the show for a twentieth season in 2027.
Where Gubler is now
He's the lead of Einstein, a CBS drama with comedic tones in which he plays Lewis Einstein, the directionless great-grandson of Albert, pressed into helping a detective solve homicides. It's had a stop-start development: ordered to series April 22, 2025, pushed to 2026–27 a week later for lack of schedule room, then slotted as a midseason entry, meaning January 2027 at the earliest. Rosa Salazar departed the co-lead role and Melissa Fumero replaced her.
Which is to say the scheduling explanation is still live. Gubler is contractually busy playing a different socially awkward genius on a different CBS procedural.
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