Jennifer Love Hewitt's exit from Criminal Minds in the finale of season 10 has left a lot of fans heartbroken, as she had managed to endear a lot of viewers to her character, Kate Callahan.

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Enstars had previously speculated that Hewitt might be leaving at the end of this season. The episode, titled 'The Hunt,' was a very intense one for Hewitt's character.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Messer spoke about Hewitt's pregnancy and how they had already written up the finale before they even found out about that. But after they found out about that development they had to tweak her character arc to conclude her part.

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"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," Messer said. "There was definitely some going back and having more finality to her character. 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."

The decision to not renew Hewitt's contract also had to do with the fact that she wanted to take on the role of a full-time role. Messer also added about how they were able to nicely weave in Hewitt's real life story into the plot.

"It felt like we had every opportunity to write to the truth of it: She's having another baby. Although on the show she hasn't had, physically, two babies, she does have two kids: She has Meg, who she's been raising since she was an infant, and we wrote in that the character is going to have another baby," she said. "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. 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." She makes the decision to leave the team for a while. It's really lovely and real, not only because it was happening off-screen, but because I know those things happen in real life too."

The finale of Criminal Minds Season 10 aired on May 6.

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Criminal Minds, CBS, Television