Ask Ausiello: Spoilers on Grey's, Supernatural, P'hood, Flash, Scandal, Bones, NCIS and madami 

Got a scoop request? An anonymous tip you’re dying to share? Send any/all of the above to 

Ausiello: I choose Couple No. 2, though as far as Shonda Rhimes is concerned, their romantic status is not Alex’s No. 1 priority as the new season opens, picking up barely a day later. “Alex and Joe are in an interesting place — though I don’t know if I would talk about them in terms of their relationship just yet, just because thats not really the focus at the moment,” the

creator shares. “Cristina has left him these shares and the seat on the board, and what that means for him is complex. Does he want that? Is that what he’s looking for? Did he want the money grab that [private practice] provided him, or does he want to be the guy who has a seat on the board? It’s a big deal for him to figure out what he wants.” Bonus

Scoop: Kevin McKidd is directing the season premiere!

Question: What can you tell me about the Season 6 premiere of

Ausiello: Two things: The episode is, curiously, titled “Vegas.” And it will mark the introduction of a character that has me worried about an already-troubled couple’s future. The dude in question is named Chris, and he’s Julia’s ex-boyfriend from law school. Apparently, they end up working together at her new job.

Ausiello: The premiere picks up four months after the happy couple’s house got destroyed in a hail of gunfire (an incident that landed Booth in the hospital

in handcuffs). “For practical reasons that you’ll see, it has a very big effect on their marriage,” exec producer Jonathan Collier says of the FBI quagmire. “Booth has to deal with the legal consequences of where they ended up.” On the topic of B&B giving Christine a younger brother or sister, fellow EP Stephen Nathan would only confirm that “the

pair find themselves with child? “That’s possible,” he teases. “Families grow. People have children.”

Ausiello: Look for Jenny and Abbie’s relationship to “get deeper” in Season 2, per Nicole Beharie. “They’re a lot closer because they’ve faced the tribulations, and they’re learning more about their family — mom, dad, all that kind of stuff,” she explains. “But a few people step into the situation and put a wrench into it, and they end up butting heads.”

Ausiello: I see what you did there. You took hell and hiatus and smushed them together. That’s some clever wordplay. Here’s your scooprize: Scottish actress Ruth Connell (

) is joining the cast in the pivotal recurring role of Rowena, a mysterious old-school witch who, rumor has it, is looking to reclaim her power base.

Ausiello: Wondering how Cas will handle his buddy’s new persona? Well, first he’ll have to find out about it. “He doesn’t know what happened to Dean,” executive producer Jeremy Carver tells TVLine. “You’ve got to remember, Sam put Dean down on the bed dead. [He] comes back in the room [and] Dean’s not there. So no one knows what happened.”

Ausiello: Turns out that the the BAU team previously made the (

screen) acquaintance of J.Love’s character — because FBI agent Kate Callahan apparently was on hand for their bar-closing karaoke night last season. Nonetheless, they’re a bit startled by the way she resurfaces in their world. “You see [Kate] doing something you don’t see our team ever doing, which is schmoozing with a bad guy, working undercover to take a pedophile down,” show boss Erica Messer shares. “We’ve never seen our team pretend to like a criminal, so right off the bat she’s different in that way.”

Question: Have you got any scoop on Season 12 of NCIS? —Tara

Ausiello: As showrunner Gary Glasberg previously told TVLine, coming off a season that 1) wrote out Ziva, 2) added Bishop, 3) planted the seed for a new spin-off

and 4) accounted for Ralph Waite’s passing— and thus ended on a quiet, cliffhanger-free note — “the idea was to come out with a bang.” And the Sept. 23 premiere will do just that. “We’ve got a really significant season opener that brings Gibbs and McGee to Russia for a really big story. A crisis comes up and we immediately launch with a significant adversary who will pop up throughout the rest of the season,” played by Russian actor Alex Veadov.

‘s Matthew. Please tell me we won’t be losing anyone else in Season 5! —Kate

Ausiello: You might want to sit down for this one, Kate. “No one’s safe,” executive producer Gareth Neame tells TVLine — rather bluntly — about the PBS drama’s fifth season, which premieres Stateside on Jan. 4. “We’ve lost so many key characters already. Although the show’s only been on for four years, we’ve actually covered 10 to 12 years, so it’s reasonable that within any family, there’d be deaths in that timeframe.” (In other words, have your funeral attire ready, just in case.)

too early to be talking about the NBC hit’s midseason time slot change, EP John Eisendrath told us that while the Super Bowl episode will pick up the fall finale’s cliffhanger (airing Nov. 10), that super-special Sunday showcase

needs to be accessible to noobs. “We need to have a reason for people to need to come back when we move to Thursdays [at 9/8c, starting Feb. 5],” he allows, “but… we hopefully design a story where if you’ve never watched the show, you still will be able to enjoy it.” Because unlike 2013’s post-Super Bowl show,

— which, being on CBS, is less-serialized — “We have to be more judicious. That is the challenge.”

Question: Will Zoe Jarman be getting a decent send-off on 

Ausiello: Not necessarily, Nina, but don’t fret just yet. Betsy may not receive a huge goodbye party because the show wants to use her as much as possible this season. “Budget-wise, we had to rearrange things, and she has a new job,” executive producer Matt Warburton tells TVLine, calling the woman behind the naïve receptionist “a tremendous actress” and adding, “We want to use her whenever she’s available.” But will we see her in the season premiere? “We have not settled on that, but we’d love for her to be.” In other

Ausiello: This scoop is rated “T for Tentative,” but I hear the show is looking to add a new recurring character to the mix who is described in the casting notice as an African-American lawyer in his 30s to 50s. There’s no timetable for the newbie’s arrival, and the whole thing could be scrapped if Shonda Rhimes doesn’t find the right actor. (She already made it pretty clear that she’s in no rush to beef up the cast.) Also worth noting: This is

Question: Do you have any scoop on any DC heroes or villains coming to 

Ausiello: I’ve got some explosive scoop on this one (you’ll see what I did there in a minute): Sgt. Bette Sans Souci – AKA Plastique – will make her way to The Flash this season. The series’ incarnation of the metahuman is a fetching young redhead who was a bomb specialist with the Army before she was injured by an IED in Iraq. Since being exposed to the Central City explosion, she can turn any object into a bomb with just a touch of her hand – not a bad comrade for The Flash to have on his team, eh?

Question: Any word on this year’s Aushole bash at San Diego Comic-Con? Is there going to be one? When are you giving out the tickets? I want to go so badly! —Cari

Ausiello: Unfortunately, we had to scrap the party this year for reasons both logistical and otherwise, and no one’s more bummed about it that your host. But I assure you, my annual booze-and-swag fest will resume in 2015. In the meantime, if you find yourself in desperate need of an Aus fix, I touch down in San Diego tonight around 8 pm PST, and I’ll probably be at Baggage Claim 1 around 8:15. Shortly thereafter I’ll be on the taxi line. That should put me into the Gaslamp district at around 9 pm. At around 10:15 I’ll be standing in front of the convention center giving out free hugs as well as flyers with my Thursday, Friday and Saturday itineraries. Oh, and I’m wearing a blue-and-white gingham shirt.

That’s a wrap! Please send questions, comments, and anonymous tips to askausiello@tvline.com. (

Additional reporting by Vlada Gelman and Andy Swift

Hellatus has been around since after season 3. Where’ve you been?

Poor Booth, that’s an awful lot to deal with.

Count me in in being thrilled that a Russian actor will be playing a Russian character on “NCIS” this season. I’m hyped about what’s to come for my favorite characters in Season 12.

Pretty pumped SPN casted a female. I know there’s been ladies on the show before, but it still always seems lacking.

hoping it’s crowley’s mum – he said she was a witch in another ep

I hope Alex takes the seat! I want him back at the hospital. And I really hope they will focus on him and Jo in the later episodes more; they were happy but very much in the background in 10B. I want some emotional stuff.

I’ve been saying since season 3 that Dowager Countess will be dying soon, and that spoiler all but confirms it. The character is clearly very old and the way the show keeps jumping so many years, it just doesn’t make sense that she would be alive until the very end of the series. And after a few episodes in season 4, it looks like she might be struggling with some mental health decline this season as well… As devastating as it will be to lose her and Maggie Smith from the show, it only makes logical sense.

You say that like it isn’t already clear by this point that the Dowager Countess is immortal. ;)

But honestly, there’d be any point for the show to go on without her. Downton Abbey could lose any one of the other actors, but losing Maggie Smith would be a blow it could never recover from.

*Ok incredibly mild spoiler for many DA fans but this is in answer to Spencer’s comment and this is a spoiler article so here goes* If you knew anything about Downton Abbey you’d know your hunch about the Dowager was BS. Julian Fellowes said he’d never ever kill off Maggie Smith. If she wanted to leave the show, he’d have Violet go on holiday or something. I’m a little surprised at the alleged scoop about S5. They’ve already said nobody big dies. I mean that’s already been discussed in the press. Why ya jerking us around, Gareth?

Oh god lord, please don’t tell me that witches are going to be the big baddies this season on Supernatural.

I think it’s more telling that she is from Scotland and looking to reclaim her old power base. Think about who else is from Scotland…

she punishes him by no dinner cause you couldn’t torture enough souls today

Crowley mentioned in a previous episode that his mother was a witch – really hope this is her!

Plastique previously appeared in Smallville. Should be interesting to see how the iterations differ.

It’s also worth remarking that she’s a Firestorm villain. So with her and Ronny Raymond both showing up…

WILL MICHAEL J FOX BE A REGULAR ON THE GOOD WIFE THIS SEASON. THIS MY 3RD ATTEMPT TO FIND OUT! !!!

On CM: “You see [Kate] doing something you don’t see our team ever doing, which is schmoozing with a bad guy, working undercover…” this sound exactly like Prentiss with Ian Doyle.

Hope the Kate character gets developed and has something that makes her different but at the same time and we get to see some tension and get some more back history thru her.

Ausiello, ask them if there are plans to get Paget back for an ep this season.

Okay…I remember Christinal leaving Alex her share of the hospital…but I can’t remember who thought they were getting it….was it Bailey?

I think Richard told Bailey she was basically a shoe-in to get Christina’s spot on the board without knowing she gave them to Alex.

Bailey thought she was getting Cristina’s seat on the board but Christina left her share an her seat on the board to Alex. (That’s the only 2 episodes I watched all season)

I love Blacklist – but seriously thinking about dumping it if it moves to Thursday. I hate it when Networks change the days on you trying to get ratings or bump someone off. If you change and I’m busy – YOU LOSE!

When you busy, you still have chance record it, or download from internet, and watch later.

Once again she lives up to her name. This like the team already working with Blake aside from Morgan and Garcia because of the Olympics gig Derek had. But still… come up with something new for once.

Just don’t let her have a connection with Reid like Blake did… Anywho, I shall return with the ever present Morgan and Reid question that is burning in my brain.

Except all it said was that she was at the bar the night of their karaoke get-together. That could mean something as simple as her enjoying their antics on stage and talking about non-work related things with them. Also, speaking as a writer, some people like to go with what they’re used to writing. *Shrugs* Ten years in, it’s not always easy to come up with new ideas. Not to say they shouldn’t try, of course-I’m all for new storylines. But this show is a procedural. That genre likes its formula and basic setup and tends to stick with it.

And I liked Blake and Reid’s connection. Somehow I get the feeling a lot of fans would prefer Kate having that kind of history with Reid instead of pushing them together romantically, which seems to be a fear amongst some fans.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what she does with this undercover gig. I would argue that Emily forging a romantic relationship with Doyle could be considered a precedent for this sort of behavior…but even then, how deep her “affections” for him got could be a little murky to sort out, and they did become mortal enemies in the end, so… Just trying to be friends with an unsub, though, yeah, I’ll be curious to see how that goes for Kate, and how the team reacts to it.

As for the info on “Sleepy Hollow”, very happy to hear that Jenny and Abbie’s bond will deepen. I’m not surprised that there will still be some antagonistic moments between them-they’re both very stubborn, outspoken, tough people, and they’ve got a LOT of history and issues to patch up, so yeah, it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows overnight. But any chance for them to get closer as sisters in general is very much welcome nonetheless, and I look forward to seeing that happen.

Do have any new information about the Longmire season? Seems Vic and Branch are in deep trouble.. And what about Henry? He’s in limbo. I like this show and want to see it’s hidden agendas.

Jennifer Love Hewitt will not be welcome addition on Criminal MInds. I don’t see her lasting more than one year!

Probably not, no, if nobody even bothers to give her a chance.

I hate to be antagonistic, but if feel like her character might be the second coming of Rachel Nichols. Great Actress, awfully written character bogged down by some special ability/knowledge (in the case, the undercover aspect as opposed to the being raised by a serial killer thing). I hope this undercover thing isn’t a running gimmick throughout the season and that they put some time into developing her character. JLH might be a breath of fresh air if given the chance and the writing.

When are you going to start doing an East Coast version of the Aushole Bash at NYCC?? Inquiring minds want to know!

“I touch down in San Diego tonight around 8 pm PST” PST? I’d be more surprised by this if I hadn’t seen an ad last night for a niche cable station that promoted tomorrow’s schedule with both visual and spoken “eight o’clock Eastern standard time.”

Literally cannot wait to see how Cas and Sam react to finding out that Dean is a demon. Bring it on!

Same here. it would be really cool if there was some way to show “true form” Cas and Dean.. like seeing each other, since angels and demons can see each other’s true form? Either way, gonna be awesome.

I can’t wait for SPN 10. From all the spoilers I’ve read, it sounds like it has a lot of potential. The new character looks great (and hmm, who else on the show is Scottish??), dark/demon Dean could be really interesting to see, and I hope Sam and Cas work together to save Dean and solve Cas’s fading grace. But as long as Jensen, Jared, and Misha are all around for the long haul, I’d happily watch another ten seasons.

Loved last year’s SDCC bash – hope it goes well next year (and I hope to make it there as well)! Maybe I’ll wear my Spoiler Alert shirt tomorrow to Comic-Con in your honor!

I’m really looking forward to see Kate Callahan. But seriously, Erica, saying that she’s gonna do something that hasn’t been done yet, which is getting “acquainted” with the bad guy so she can then put him away in jail, really… There’s a show-runner forgetting that that is not new and has been done on the show before, when we had the flashbacks of Emily undercover as Lauren, who was just the type of woman Doyle liked, so they could find out all of his criminal ties and dirty businesses and get him in jail for life.

I’m kind of sad that McGee has replaced Tony as Gibbs’s right hand man as I find Tony infinitely more interesting than either Gibbs or McGee, but I guess tptb will promote whoever they want these days and the lucky trio seems to be McGee, Gibbs, and Bishop. I guess the “crisis” will be either Gibbs or McGee injured somehow. I’m glad that tptb are thinking at least a little about Tony even if they don’t (as is usually the case) follow through. Maybe he’ll get to do more than click the clicker or be comic relief in episode 4.

Personally, I prefer McGee over Tony, but I like them both. I did read last week that Tony is supposed to have a new romantic interest this season and she is very different than Ziva.

I read on another blog that Booth & Bones are NOT having another child but that Booth will be acquiring an intern or apprentice of some sort that follows him around. I don’t think the show needed to give them a conflict so early in their marriage. I love the show though, have been watching since Day One, still watch all the TNT repearts.

Regarding The Blacklist and EP John Eisendrath wanting people to have a reason to comeback when they move to Thur….that reason to comeback would be Keen and Ressler getting together. If he doubts it, google the Keenler fanfiction that’s out there and perhaps that will do the trick. It’s way more interesting when Red fusses over both Lizzie AND Ressler. They both have lost everything and if Red wants some type of parental relationship with Lizzie, he can also have that with Ressler. The Ressler/Red scenes were as interesting as the Red/Lizzie scenes. And the Ressler/Lizzie scenes always seemed a bit incomplete (when she showed up at his apartment etc.)

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