Penelope Garcia is a fan favorite character in Criminal Minds. The dark web hacker turned FBI agent is extremely skilled at digging up information. She makes connections between seemingly unrelated things and is able to find evidence to support her suspicions. In addition to her skills, Garcia is known for her humor and quirkiness that bring brief smiles to fellow profilers' faces during their stressful work of hunting down serial killers.
Garcia makes the decision to leave the BAU at the end Criminal Minds. For someone who has dedicated so many years to working for the FBI, the decision is rather sudden and leaves fans with many questions. Why did Garcia leave the FBI? The answer has everything to do with his relationship with the office.
How did Penelope get into the BAU?
Unlike the rest of her colleagues, Penelope Garcia did not join the FBI by choice. She worked as an anarchist hacker under the code name “the Black Queen”. Due to her skills and criminal activities, the FBI opened a case against her. Garcia was once an Unsub until Aaron Hotchner and his fellow profilers captured her. Garcia was offered a choice: serve time in prison or work for the FBI. For lack of a better choice, Garcia chose the latter and used his skills to help the bureau catch more criminals. Although chasing serial killers has many downsides, Garcia eventually settled into his job. His tolerance for explicit scenes and violence has increased over the years.
Garcia's time at the FBI has made her an invaluable member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. When JJ left for another job, Garcia filled her slot and took over some of the liaison duties. She has brought cases to the team and offered technical assistance on each case. However, it seems clear from the start that she doesn't particularly enjoy a job that involves murder and gruesome details. Even in the first season, Garcia had a stronger reaction than others to the graphic details of crime scenes. Unlike the other agents on the team, he is not entirely immune to the bad things he sees on a daily basis. Because of this, she begins to wear brighter clothes and surrounds herself with things she enjoys. Although she has remained with the FBI throughout the years until the end of the show, it is obvious that if given the chance, she would consider leaving.
Why did Penelope Garcia leave Criminal Minds?
Garcia leaves the show in the season 15 finale. She received a job offer at a non-profit organization. Compared to her job at BAU, her new job is less stressful and demanding. At the same time, Garcia gets to do what she loves to do, helping others. At the time, her exit from the BAU made sense from the show's perspective. In an interview with TV Insider, Garcia's actress, Kirsten Vangsness, confirmed her character's exit at the end of season 15. She co-wrote the episode with showrunner Erica Messer. Both agreed that it was right for Garcia to leave her job, as she represented the viewer's perspective. Her exit was also a necessary farewell to Criminal Minds. Vangsness explained:
She's the eyes of the audience, really. She's the empath. She's the one who usually says if something is gross, good or bad, so if we're writing the series finale and we want to show that this show is something that goes on and on and on, the good guys are still out there helping, we want the audience to turn away. Since Garcia is the eyes of the audience, you turn her away, it makes more sense.
Vangsness felt it was the right time to let Garcia leave the FBI. “The timing was right,” she added, even though “it was incredibly difficult.” However, the final decision also helped her understand her character better. The actress revealed that Garcia had a moment of clarity that really pushed the character in the direction of making the decision on her own. It's the conversation with Diana in the hospital when Garcia thinks back to the moments when they were injuredaccording to Vangsness:
These things don't come without cost, and you always have to recharge after doing something so emotionally draining, and that's something Garcia understands. “Oh yeah, I don't think I can do this particular thing back to back every year forever. I need a little break.”
Garcia had to leave the FBI
Over the course of fifteen seasons, Garcia has become a central character in Criminal Minds. By the final and fifteenth season, the show was building to each character’s goodbye. Rossi was considering retirement after a difficult case. Spencer Reid took a more active role in teaching. Emily was getting a promotion. For Garcia, who has never really had a choice in her career, allowing her to decide for herself was important. It’s an interesting question: Would Garcia choose to work for the FBI if she had a choice? The truth is, probably not. Serial murder just isn’t for her.
It makes sense that Garcia's departure from the show would also be a departure for the FBI. She deserved a chance to choose her fate instead of being forced to stay. However, his relationship with the FBI is also complicated. Garcia didn't choose the job. The job chose her. The FBI needed her. That's always been what defined her relationship with her job at the FBI. The team needed Garcia's skills, and Because Garcia is an empathetic person who can't stop putting others first, she gets dragged deeper and deeper into a job that hurts her emotionally.. It is obvious that working for the FBI has had an effect on her. Garcia's life has been in danger a couple of times and she has had to deal with situations where people she cares about have been hurt.
How does Penelope Garcia return to Criminal Minds: Evolution?
There is simply no replacement for Garcia. No one else has her skillset; they need her to make the team work. Instead, Mandy Patinkin's Jason Gideon can be replaced by David Rossi, who acts as a more experienced profiler to lead the team as a mentor. Hotchner is the leader of the group and can be replaced by another leader. Although Reid has a very unique skill, the team can still function without him, just at a slower pace. However, Garcia is the person who holds the team together. Without her, things wouldn't be the same.
The good thing is that Criminal Minds: Evolution brought back Penelope Garcia. Since she was unlikely to choose to return to the team, someone on the team would have to approach her with a case. The case involves the kidnapping of a teenage girl from Bethesda, and Luke Alvez is the agent who brings her the case. By then, Garcia had built a new, balanced life for herself. She wanted to help, but she also didn't want to sacrifice herself. Criminal Minds: Evolution really delves deeper into why Garcia left in the first placeHe didn't regret his choice; on the contrary, he made her understand that she had made the right decision for herself.
Garcia realized that she had been exhausted the entire time. She was giving more than she could to the job to the point that she was allowing bad things to happen to her. Lack of self-care and boundaries were at the root of her problems, so this time when Garcia returned to work with the BAU, she made sure to take care of herself, too. She also didn't let Rossi take his anger out on her. Garcia also missed her old team and working on the cases. After helping Luke with the first one, she got involved in solving the serial killer ring. From there, Garcia continued to help the profilers track down leads. It eventually became a full-time job again because she so missed working with the rest of the team. While Garcia didn't choose to become a profiler, the FBI is where she belongs.