Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Episode 2.
The BAU thought they might have a few moments of peace with Elias Voit (Zach Gilford) in a coma, but that dream is dashed at the top of this week’s Criminal Minds: Evolution when the alert goes out that Voit has woken up. It’s a medical miracle! At least, that’s what his doctors say before they tell the team that Voit only had a minute drop in physical strength after his attack, but he now suffers from “retrograde amnesia.” He only speaks in select monosyllables and can’t remember anything about his past, including his name. That’s mighty convenient for a serial killer mastermind with a network of protegés still out in the world doing evil deeds.
There’s a lot of debate throughout the episode about what to do with Voit in this condition and how to prove he might have been faking. However, that has to take a backseat when another one of his disciples, nicknamed the Zookeeper, comes across Garcia’s (Kirsten Vangsness) desk. The team has to split focus to find the Zookeeper, who hunts sex workers and keeps them locked in cages in his basement so that he can “tame” them. As disturbing as the Zookeeper storyline was, it’s not the most horrifying aspect of the episode. Criminal Minds comes for a member of the BAU family and sets up a very dark time for J.J. (A.J. Cook) going forward, and it’s going to be hard to forgive the powers that be.
Another ’90s Fave Goes Serial Killing in ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’

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Mighty Ducks and Daredevil favorite Elden Henson becomes the latest in a long line of beloved ’90s stars to try their hand at serial killing on a network procedural. In Criminal Minds: Evolution, Elden plays Clyde Smets, an insurance middle manager who enjoys dressing up as video game villains so he can teach morality and submission to sex workers. He started his gruesome torture of these women during the pandemic, right as Voit was setting up his network — and who knows how long he would’ve kept going if Garcia hadn’t discovered a link to his torture livestreams in a hard drive recovered from Voit’s lawyer?
Clyde is holding a woman named Sabrina Traver (Aimee Garcia) when Garcia initially finds the Zookeeper’s stream. She had been missing for over a year, but local police had overlooked it because of her profession. Unfortunately, the BAU doesn’t have much time to find her. By the time they build the profile around Clyde, he’s already murdered Sabrina in favor of training a new victim, Tia (Sadie Stanley). The team is able to track Clyde down through Sabrina’s family. They find her ex-boyfriend, who got her into sex work. When they give him Clyde’s profile, he recognizes the insurance seller as a man Sabrina met at a Christmas party the year before. Once they have his place of business, it only takes one interview and a search warrant to figure out Clyde’s full identity and address.
Clyde is tipped off by a coworker that the FBI is on the way, and he tries to kill Tia before the cops can arrive, but Green (RJ Hatanaka) is able to get there first. Tia is in the middle of strangling Clyde herself and Green manages to talk her down, but he isn’t able to intercede before Clyde slits his own throat, confirming that he is an Elias Voit disciple. (No one was really on the fence about that, though!) With Clyde dead, the BAU is forced to evaluate their options when it comes to finding the rest of Voit’s network. Unfortunately, there is only one, and it means allowing Rossi (Joe Mantegna) to put himself in Voit’s hands once again.
Voit Gives an Academy Award-Level Performance

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There are many components of the Voit case that need to come together for the BAU to keep the killer locked behind bars. Before the alert goes out that Voit is awake, Green delivers a file to Rossi about Voit’s lawyer, Orloff. The Albuquerque FBI field office discovered that Osoff had previously defended the uncle of one of Voit’s attackers and used that connection to have Voit attacked in jail. That connection would allow Rossi to prove that Voit had set up the attack to get out of prison.
The problem is that Voit has fully convinced his doctors of his amnesia. That means the BAU has to run their own tests to try and prove that Voit faked his coma and doesn’t actually have the brain damage his neurologists believe he did. However, the preliminary tests aren’t able to disprove his diagnosis. Things get even more strange when Rossi shows up to see Voit awake for himself, and the serial killer calls him his father. Voit repeats the action when Rossi returns later in the episode to question him about his connection to the Zookeeper. When Voit keeps up the charade, Rossi loses his temper and attacks him. That shortens the BAU’s timeline with Voit because they know that when he eventually changes counsel, the team will be banned from seeing him – unless Voit wants Rossi to be there. Rossi is his favorite member of the BAU, and maybe this “dad” gimmick is a window into why.

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Rossi wants no part in roleplaying with Voit, even if it could speed up the memory recovery process (if the memories actually need to be recovered). Well, he wants no part in it until Clyde kills himself, and Rossi realizes the only way to get the information the BAU needs about the remainder of Voit’s network is to get it out of the man himself. Rossi stands the best chance of doing that, which means volunteering to walk into the lion’s den and playing Voit’s game with him. While the members of the BAU are sure that Voit is faking his symptoms, another scan reveals that the part of Voit’s brain that controls sympathy and empathy is lighting up when Lewis (Aisha Tyler) questions him. That’s an almost impossible thing to fake, but it gives more credence to his doctors’ theories that the prison attack has literally made Voit a changed man.
How Dare ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Do This to J.J.?

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The BAU will have to wait a minute to truly dissect Voit’s test results and how they’ll use Rossi in a role-playing scenario, because they have their hands full with a mourning J.J. Honestly, we should’ve known something was up when the “previously on” section at the top of the episode reminded us that Voit’s network had made an R-rated site dedicated to J.J. on the dark web. That reminder becomes relevant at the end of the episode, when Henry (a giant teenager now!) is heading to school with his friend. They’re whispering about J.J. before they head to the car, and J.J. is worried that Henry’s friends have found the illicit site. Fortunately, it was just a news article about the BAU saving Tia, and Henry’s friend was calling J.J. a badass. It’s a massive relief and a dream come true for the mom of a teenage boy.
It isn’t a dream come true when J.J. leaves the encounter to get coffee and finds her husband, Will (Josh Stewart), struggling with a massive headache. She’s about to pour him a cup of coffee, too, when he collapses on the kitchen floor. He is rushed to the hospital and the team arrives shortly afterward. Will’s had a surprise aneurysm, and the episode ends with J.J. walking out of her meeting with the doctors to inform her coworkers that her husband is dead.
There have been varying opinions on J.J.’s and Will’s relationship, especially by those fans who ardently hoped J.J. would eventually end up with Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler). The potential of a J.J. and Reid relationship was put to bed in the flagship final season of the show when J.J. definitively picked Will. Even if fans had preferred her with Reid, no one wanted Will to die. He’s been a fan-favorite member of the BAU extended family since early in the original run of the series, and J.J. will be gutted by this loss.
Is this what is going to bring Reid back into the BAU fold — and if so, do we have to be careful what we wish for? These are not the circumstances anyone wanted for J.J. and Reid to reunite under, even platonically. There also needs to be questions about how this aneurysm actually occurred. It could’ve been a random twist of fate, or the illicit site about J.J. was brought up again to put viewers on their toes. Did some demented stalker kill Will to position themselves closer to J.J.? Absolutely nothing feels right about this situation, so suspicion glasses will remain on for the rest of the season.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 continues with new episodes every Thursday on Paramount+.

Criminal Minds

Tragedy strikes the BAU after they subdue a ’90s-famous unsub in Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Episode 2.

Release Date

September 22, 2005

Network

CBS, Paramount+

Showrunner

Erica Messer

Directors

Félix Enríquez Alcalá, Rob Bailey, Matthew Gray Gubler, Joe Mantegna, John Gallagher, Douglas Aarniokoski, Guy Norman Bee, Larry Teng, Nelson McCormick, Alec Smight, Charles S. Carroll, Rob Spera, Charles Haid, Diana Valentine, Rob Hardy, Tawnia McKiernan, Bethany Rooney, Karen Gaviola, Sharat Raju, Thomas Gibson, Aisha Tyler, Anna Foerster, Gloria Muzio, John Terlesky

Pros & Cons

Voit continues to be one of the most compelling villains the show has.
What a turn for Elden Henson!
We love when a victim gets some revenge.

You’ll never convince me that killing Will was necessary.