Here's Amber Heard's Criminal Minds character Lila explained. Criminal Minds made its debut on CBS back in 2005, where it became one of the network's most popular procedurals. The series follows a team of FBI profilers as they are tasked with hunting down various serial killers. Criminal Minds was originally led by Homeland star Mandy Patinkin for the first two seasons, who famously exited the series abruptly after struggling with the level of violence it portrayed.
The series was popular enough to warrant several spinoffs too, including Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders and Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. Despite coming to an end in 2020 after 15 seasons, Criminal Minds already has a revival series was some returning cast in development. Given how long the series ran, it's little surprise that several major actors made guest appearances on Criminal Minds earlier in their careers. In fact, Criminal Minds season 1's "Somebody's Watching" had two in the form of Vikings star Katheryn Winnick and Aquaman's Amber Heard.
Criminal Minds "Somebody's Watching" was broadcast in 2006, and provided Amber Heard with one of her earliest roles following movies like Friday Night Lights. The story sees Gideon (Patinkin) and Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) consulting on a case in L.A. involving a killer, with Reid being introduced to an actor named Lila Archer (Heard). Lila is the star of a TV series dubbed Emotional Cages and she and Spencer Reid - who may not return for the revival - first have a meet-cute at an art gallery.
After Lila's manager is murdered, Reid is assigned to protect her and they end up kissing after she pulls him into the pool. It soon becomes clear that Criminal Minds' "Somebody's Watching" case revolves around Amber Heard's Lila, with the killer targeting rival actors or others potentially standing in the way of her career. It's eventually revealed that her friend and production assistant Maggie (Winnick) is the murderer, who became obsessed with Lila after they attended Julliard together.
After a tense standoff where Lila is held at gunpoint by Maggie, Reid arrests the latter. Criminal Minds "Somebody's Watching" ends with a hint that Lila and Reid may see each other again, but Amber Heard never returned to the show and Reid was evasive when asked what happened between them. It's unknown if Heard was ever approached about making future Criminal Minds guest appearances, but since she quickly moved on to movies like Never Back Down and Pineapple Express following her role as Lila, she may have been too busy.