What role does Sydney Sweeney play in Criminal Minds? Characters explored, in depth

Sydney Sweeney played one of the most jarring roles of her life in Criminal Minds before she played any other popular roles. While Sweeney is known for playing Cassie Howard in Euphoria, Sister Cecelia in Immaculate, and Beatrice Messina in Anyone but You, one of her earliest roles was Dani Forester in Criminal Minds.

She played a young girl who was, unfortunately, the victim of a serial killer. Despite not getting much screen time, Sweeney's performance in that episode was much appreciated.

Who did Sydney Sweeney play in Criminal Minds?

Criminal Minds first aired on 22nd September 2005 on CBS. It has been a popular drama that follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), a group of criminal profilers who work for the FBI. The show ran for fifteen seasons, from 2005 to 2020.

However, due to its immense popularity and success, the show returned for a sixteenth season as Criminal Minds: Evolution in November 2022. The show has continued for two more seasons since then and has been renewed for a nineteenth season.

From the beginning, Criminal Minds focused on the criminal profilers analyzing cases to understand the psychological condition of the criminals, whom they call unsub. Their analysis helped the FBI understand how to deal with such criminals and arrest them.

Sydney Sweeney starred in a guest role in the show's season five, episode eight, Outfoxed, which aired on 18th November 2009. The episode followed a series of murders that had the same pattern: families of military officers serving overseas were murdered and buried in the yard, and some belongings like wedding rings or watches were taken.

If this wasn't strange enough, Karl Arnold, a serial killer BAU helped put in prison, who had the same MO as this new unsub, had received two envelopes from an unknown sender. One of the envelopes had clippings of the murders that BAU's Aron Hotchner, Dr. Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia, and Emily Prentiss were investigating at the time. The second envelope had a strange message, almost a confession, saying,

"look at what I have done - An Admirer"

It was as if someone admired Karl's method of killing and was committing murders the same way. But there was a difference. While Karl's main motivations behind his killings were sexual, this new unsub's weren't. This unsub's motive seemed to be aimed at the fathers, who were deployed overseas, given that a photo frame of one of the families killed, the Downey family, was found with a bullet shot aimed at the father's picture.

Soon, more murders take place, and since this unsub seems to be killing families, the Forester family becomes their next victim. Sydney Sweeney plays a young girl, Dani Forester, in this episode, who we see with a gun pointed at her head, while her mother and brother return from a soccer game. We do not see her die, but we see her terrified face, a little girl who has no idea what is happening and why. We soon learned that she was suffocated, and the rest of the family was also killed. Dani's father was deployed in Afghanistan.

At the end of the episode, we learn the killer is a woman named Miranda Dracar, who was likely born in conflicted Bosnia in the 1990s. That might have caused her immense trauma, which she was, in turn, inflicting on her victims. In the end, before BAU can arrest Miranda, in a struggle, she shoots herself.

Sydney Sweeney has a short guest role in the show and played out a terrifying scene when she was just twelve. However, this was just the beginning of Sweeny's television career, and she would go on to play complex characters like Sister Cecilia in Immaculate, Margret Wittmer in Eden, Claire Garrett in Echo Valley, and Cassie in Euphoria.

Criminal Minds and Criminal Minds: Evolution are streaming on Paramount+.

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