Kirsten Vangsness and Adam Rodriguez Dish on Garvez’s Dynamic in Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 17

Criminal Minds has built many iconic on-screen relationships over the years but perhaps none with as big of a following as Luke Alvez and Penelope Garcia — Garvez, for short. Since Luke debuted in season 12 of the show, his dynamic with Penelope has become a significant part of his storyline. In season 15 before the series’ switch to Paramount+ and got a revamped title, Penelope and Luke finally tested the waters and went on a date. The aftermath of that wasn’t shown given that was the series finale so fans were almost able to come to their own conclusion. However, that changed when Evolution was announced.

When Evolution debuted, it left a lot of unanswered questions and raised even more as the 10-episode 16th season went on. Penelope got involved with Tyler Green (Ryan James-Hatanaka) who began as an anonymous informant feeding information about Sicarius to Penelope in order to locate him and get justice for his missing sister. They began a relationship that lasted but a blip before Penelope realized that it wasn’t appropriate. One of the biggest detesters of their relationship was none other than Luke. 

Comicbook caught up with Vangsness and Rodriguez to chat about Criminal Minds: Evolution season 17 and the two dished about Garvez’s relationship dynamic this season. Vangsness noted that they “have a blast” doing it while Rodriguez added that “it makes it better.”

“Yeah, because I’m suddenly, like, I think before it was always ‘ugh, ugh’ with him and then last season it was like, ‘I have no one else to talk to, I have to talk to you’ and we had that date that wasn’t a date, like all these things,” Vangsness said. “So it’s both neutral but not, you know what I mean? Because we have chemistry. So it’s like there’s that, but it’s been really fun. There’s a scene where I had to make a bunch of affirmations and I’m reading them off to him and every time I read something off to him, it’s just fun. That’s my experience.”

Rodriguez added, “Yeah. I love it as well. I think, you know, it puts the relationship to a new test. We had this certain dynamic before and then we very briefly like Kirsten said, explored it, went on a date and decided, ‘ok, we have to put this in this space. This is what works for both of us here.’ And then this guy gets added to the mix and there’s a whole bunch of reasons to be cautious about it. And for Alvez, I mean he gets to sort of play a different role, really a friend, which you haven’t seen him get to be in that way. [A] big brother kind of thing or little brother, however you wanna call it, where there’s a different layer of protection. He’s guarding her because he cares and you get to see that part of the relationship, which I think is really important for wherever this thing decides to go in the end.”

Vangsness added how significant it is to have Penelope interacting with the “hunks” which we have seen over the entirety of the show with her and Derek Morgan’s iconic friendship, Tyler, and Luke. “And I love that they let the character actress, like, usually the character actress does not engage with the hunks and by the grace of God, I get a lot of hunk action! I think it’s good for everybody. I think it’s good. I think it’s good for the world at large.”

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 17 premieres on June 6 on Paramount+.