A few weeks ago, Lori Loughlin went on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and satirized her participation in the college admissions scandal known as Varsity Blues. Now her fellow felon, Felicity Huffman, has booked a very different kind of TV role, her second since serving a brief prison sentence in 2019. She is going to play a biological psychiatrist on the “Criminal Minds” spinoff “Evolution.”
Some are theorizing that the role could become a more regular part of the series, which runs on Paramount+. The character is already tied in with the mythology of the “Criminal Minds” world; her late husband was Mandy Patinkin’s Jason Gideon, who was on the first three seasons of the original series.
Advertisement
I do hope this works out for Huffman, whose other post-scandal role, in a backdoor pilot episode of “The Good Doctor,” did not pan out into a full series. From the start, she has been humble and apologetic about her participation in Varsity Blues, pleading guilty in a Boston courtroom and openly talking about her “undying shame.” She has paid the price for her crime. Also, she’s a wonderful actress, and she adds to everything she’s in. She was outstanding in “Sports Night,” a little-known Showtime miniseries called “Out of Order,” “Desperate Housewives,” and the extraordinary anthology series “American Crime.”
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.