Tyler on that ambush and what comes next: ‘There’s only so many deaths one can take’

Don’t spiral: BAU vet Tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler) pulls through after she is shot not once, but twice in an ambush in last week’s episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution.

However, she spends a large chunk of the latest episode under surgery, with her loved ones unsure if she’ll make it. But the episode is not entirely Tara-less: While under the knife, Tara, convinced that she is on death’s door, is met by her late mother Caroline (played by LaTanya Richardson Jackson), who forces her daughter to reconcile with the unprocessed grief surrounding her death from breast cancer. It’s through those shared scenes with Richardson Jackson — whom Tyler praises as a “powerhouse”— that Tara confronts the unresolved pain that has weighed her down in recent years, which has led to a fear of commitment with girlfriend Rebecca (Nicole Pacent).

“She’s trying to be who she thinks her mother would appreciate, but she’s also carrying around a lot of frustration and anger and pain,” Tyler tells Entertainment Weekly of Tara’s emotional episode arc. “It really lifts a weight from her shoulders.” Tara awakens from surgery, and by the end of the episode, she stuns girlfriend Rebecca with a marriage proposal. Below, Tyler talks the episode and what comes next.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You get the script and it’s ominously titled “Tara.” What’s going through your mind?

AISHA TYLER: So fortunately, I had gotten a bit of a preview at the beginning of the season. The showrunners are great. They pitch us the season before we start filming, which is generous. We really feel like we’re all part of the process. [Showrunner] Erica [Messer] goes, “So episode 8 is called ‘Tara.'” And I was like, “Okay, what does that mean?” She’s like, “You’ll see.” I mean, I think they do such a beautiful job. Even more so now that we’re on Paramount because we have so much more narrative time of servicing the characters’ backstories. This is real work, and it takes a toll. We know that from talking to real-life profilers that we work with on the show that it takes a toll. I was excited because I knew I was going to get to do some acting that didn’t have anything to do with body parts, but I didn’t know until I read it what was going to happen.

Do you think the show would ever veer in the direction of killing off a major character? 

I don’t know that any story turn is off the table, but I do also know that the people on the show are really the beating heart of Criminal Minds. We did just lose a beloved character in Will, and that was super emotional. There’s only so many deaths one can take in a season. We know profilers that do this work in real life have had many brushes with death and lived through it. I think that’s the other part of the story, not just that it’s dangerous work, but that it’s crucial work. No matter how hard it is, they keep coming back.

We’ve got some returning characters here, like Silvio Herrera. Tara is called to discuss Silvio before she’s ambushed. What can you tease about Silvio’s larger connection to the case and Tara?

[The remaining episodes] are a really beautifully built puzzle box. You really want to just sit, standby, because there’s a lot of complexity to those episodes. What’s been really great about being in streaming is how we’re able to build this more elegant and complex puzzle for people. It used to be just, “Solve the crime every week.” Now we are also building this larger mystery, so I can’t tell you anything about Sylvio. But what I can tell you is that these characters, because they all have dipped in some way into the network, are a part of this larger mystery that we’re building around and beyond Voit. Because Voit’s out of play. But is he out of play?

How does Tara’s near-death experience inform the rest of her arc this season?

It makes her feel that life is even more precious. We’ve learned from people who do this work for real that it’s very dark and you could really sink into a fog. We ask ’em, how do you get through it? You have to seize the moment. You have to seize joy where you find it. The work is incredibly important and you’re devoted to it, but you need to laugh, you need to be with friends, you need to dance, you need to drink. You need to be alive, because none of us know how long we have. And that’s true of all of us. None of us know how much time we have. I think that’s very much something that she takes away from that experience. She is so driven. I love that about her. I think women apologize for ambition far too frequently. Tara does not lose that drive, but it just imbues that drive with even more value and meaning as she moves forward. She’ll be a lighter person, but no less dedicated to the work.

We do get a happy ending with the engagement. Will we be getting a wedding this season? 

I can tell you nothing about that! I can tell you that I think that — oh, God, I can’t tell you anything. What can I say? I can just say that we’ve got our beautiful Nicole in season 19, so that’s great. So we’ll see more of her.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.