Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 focused the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI was Gold Star. However, the previous season’s villain, Elias Voit, also loomed over the proceedings, despite his incarceration. Season 2, Episode 10, “Save the Children,” resolved both storylines in a satisfying way, and even tied things more cleanly to the big death in Season 1, utilizing the recurring themes that had been laid out before.
There was the role conspiracy theory played in the overall threat Gold Star posed. There was also a looming danger to the BAU itself. The hidden mastermind seemed to believe or, at least want others to believe, that the profiling unit did more harm than good. Lastly, there was the role that women played in the BAU. The finale neatly brings all three elements together to tell a story about truth, victimization and how good intentions can lead people astray. Criminal Minds: Evolution audiences walk away feeling empathy for all the characters involved — except one.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Brings Back a Season 1 Character
Doug Bailey Returns to the Show In a Clever Way
Criminal Minds: Evolution shockingly shot and killed unpopular character Deputy Director Doug Bailey in the Season 1 finale. He returns via flashback and video in the Season 2 finale — because it’s revealed the final Gold Star kid “Peter B.” is his brother Peter Bailey. As the men who tortured and turned the Gold Star kids used conspiracy theories to twist them into killers, Peter turned to his brother with his theories about the “deep state” and the FBI harming children. By killing Doug, Voit knew he was going to be able to convince Peter to blame the BAU.
The ultimate motivation of Peter and Jade Waters wasn’t the power fantasies or delusions of typical Criminal Minds unsubs. Instead, they were waging a campaign against an unstoppable force in an effort to save children. The torture they faced — revealed in Season 2, Episode 9, “Stars & Stripes” — was something they didn’t want anyone else to go through. Yet, despite the lies their manipulators told them, there were kids to save. In taking down Frank Church, Jade saved the lives of other kids experiencing the same trauma she had.
Emily Prentiss: Jade, Mila is alive because of you…we need you to tell us about Damien and Stuart House. We need you to tell us your truth.
Before Evolution, Criminal Minds was a procedural most of the time — which didn’t allow for a lot of follow-up after the case of the week. This new, more serialized iteration of the show gives storytellers the chance to build up their unsubs in more complex ways and highlight what happens to them after they’re caught. Just as Elias Voit played a role in Season 2, it’s possible Jade and Peter will appear in Season 3. They were victims of a conspiracy theory that built a lie around a kernel of truth. Seeing how these kids recover from their manipulation and what debt society asks of them for their crimes is an interesting… well, evolution.
Criminal Minds Humbles Elias Volt in the Finale
JJ Gains Significant Leverage Over Season 1’s Mastermind
The series establishes that there were two masterminds behind the Gold Star murders. Frank Church was trying to create an army of trained killers he could use for his private security firm. Elias Voit wanted to manipulate Peter, Jade and Damien Booth into exacting revenge on the BAU for him. He was the one who pointed them to the FBI, using the “lucky break” — as Emily Prentiss put it — that the plan to create the Gold Star program came from the early BAU.
Voit’s story is easily the best examination of an unsub after their capture by the BAU. He is playing both sides of this particularly dangerous game. He could have his revenge but use his knowledge of Gold Star to cut a deal for a lighter prison sentence. He also gets the opportunity to play FBI agent a few times. The botched plot to capture Jade and Damien was one of those times, as was his trip with the team in the Season 2 finale. But Voit doesn’t escape unscathed.
JJ Jareau: Lucky for you I can bury things, too. Now, Elias, you better pray that anything with my face on it stays hidden better than one of your bunkers.
As Tyler Green and Luke Alvez point out at the end of the episode, Voit and the BAU aren’t done with each other. However, Jennifer Jareau finally has some leverage over him. Voit genuinely seems to care about his family — but he used surreptitious footage of his wife, taken without consent, to create the deepfake porn of JJ and the other women of the BAU revealed in Season 2, Episode 3, “Homesick.” It’s a small victory, but it shows that Voit no longer has the upper hand.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Treated Jade and Peter Differently
The Season’s Villains Didn’t Get the Expected Villain Ending
While Elias Voit is a character with no redeeming qualities, the Gold Star killers are a different story. It’s rare for a crime series to create the kind of story for its villains that Criminal Minds: Evolution did in Season 2. Using real-life conspiracy theories — the notion of a “deep state” in the government and a concerted effort to harm children — these kids were manipulated into becoming murderers. What makes it so awful is that they were merely “proof of concept.”
The scenes this season showing Damien and Jade did not depict gleeful murderers who enjoyed killing for a rush. Yes, they were cruel, sadistic and gained a sense of power from their violent acts. However, they did these things because they were conditioned to believe it was in the service of protecting kids like themselves. In killing the people associated with Stuart House, they covered Frank Church’s trail for him. Then the police or Church himself would kill them, tying off all loose ends. The cases that began the BAU’s mission were another attempt to clean up the evidence.
Peter Bailey: Jade, I don’t mind dying, but I’m not dying over a lie. We gotta stand down.
The law enforcement officers sent after the Gold Star kids would either kill them or further prove to the kids that “the government” was the one after them. Yet when both Peter and Jade surrendered after Voit’s lie was revealed was a remarkable way to end their story. Prentiss even acknowledges that Jade did save the other kids at risk from Frank Church. Unlike Season 2, Episode 7, “Piranha,” the ending of the Gold Star case might have just been a victory for both the BAU and the unsubs themselves.
Evolution Season 2 Corrects Criminal Minds’ Own Past
The Women of the BAU Leave the Finale Stronger Than Ever
The final thing that makes Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 so impressive is how the series is admitting it was wrong in the past. Throughout the season’s 10 episodes, the women of the BAU have been at the forefront of the storytelling. JJ gains an advantage over Voit in the end, however small. The guest character of Dr. Jill Gideon may be the ex-wife of Jason Gideon, but she was also one of the founders of the BAU. This deliberate retcon highlights the way women are sometimes erased from history.
Similarly, the scene in which J.J. talks Prentiss out of quitting during Season 2, Episode 6, “Message in a Bottle” was powerful. Both Paget Brewster and A.J. Cook have troubling history with Criminal Minds. Even though they came back, it was difficult for those in front of and behind the camera. That scene addressed that issue and Prentiss’ in-character problem simultaneously. And in the Season 2, finale, Penelope Garcia stares down Voit, humbling him like no one in the cast had before. While it doesn’t fix the mistakes of the past, Criminal Minds: Evolution is course-correcting in a way that matters. The Season 2 finale was the capstone to that mission, and hopefully that’s a trend which continues into Season 3.