Editor’s note: The followung contains spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Episode 6The old Voit (Zach Gilford) is making a comeback on Criminal Minds: Evolution. This week’s episode picked up right where last week left off, with Voit in the interrogation room talking to Ronald Graber (Winter Andrews) in an attempt to draw out Ronald’s message for Sicarius. As predicted, the meeting brings back memories for Voit, and he remembers killing Graber’s entire family when Graber was just a kid. That is why Graber didn’t kill himself when the cops apprehended him, so that he could see Voit in the flesh. The encounter triggered Graber to try to bash his own head in on the interrogation table and sent Voit into an emotional void. Dr. Ochoa (Aimee Garcia) ran a brain scan, which showed that Voit’s memory was returning, but his empathy center was still lighting up. He’s slowly coming back to his old self, but he’s retaining empathy, which means that Voit is at war with himself. The team doesn’t have a lot of time to focus on Voit, though, because J.J. (A.J. Cook) realizes a pattern in the previous three unsubs. They all become active on the network after the previous one dies or is taken into custody. With Graber arrested, the next unsub is ready to start killing, and this one loves to bury his victims alive. That means there’s more time to find the victims alive, but it’s going to be stressful while the team tries to figure all of this out.
A Disgruntled Ex Hits the Graveyard in ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’

The first victim we see trapped in a coffin still has her cell phone. She’s able to call 911 and home in hopes of getting to speak to her daughter one last time. The first responders race to find the grave, but they do not get there before the coffin collapses and she dies from inhaling too much soil. Alvez (Adam Rodriguez) is able to look at the remains of the makeshift coffin and deduces that the unsub rigs the coffins with detonators. He doesn’t get off on his victims being buried alive, but he live streams them panicking and then decides when to blow the box and suffocate them in soil. It’s about controlling the moment of death rather than the pure torture of it all. It turns out the unsub is going through a messy divorce, which was also true for his first victim. Garcia goes through the chat logs on Voit’s network to find disgruntled ex-husbands and finds 10, but narrows in on one when J.J. suggests she looks for complaints about alimony. Kyle Mackey (Aaron Stanford) fits the profile and has been going through a tense custody battle with his ex, Lainey (Alicia Urizar McCallum). While Lainey is the target of Kyle’s rage, he takes it out on their daughter Ava (Audrina Miranda). He buries their daughter out in the woods and makes Lainey watch the livestream. Luckily, Garcia is on the case and finds the live stream by hacking into Kyle’s network. The team is able to find Ava’s location and goes straight to arrest Kyle. Alvez and Green get to Ava in time to dig her up, and Kyle is arrested before he can harm her or Lainey. The mother and daughter have a happy – well, as happy as you can have considering the trauma – reunion at the Quantico office.

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Voit Is Becoming a Member of the Team

Image via Paramount+

Green (Ryan-James Hatanaka) and Garcia (Kristen Vangsness) agree to go visit Voit to see if they can get more info about the network and the domino activating unsubs. Green feels like he can get through to Voit because he was once part of the network, but Garcia has the technical skills to figure out who or what they need to hack for more info. Voit has a hard time remembering anything without a physical trigger in the room, so Garcia comes up with the idea for them to build a computer together. They build it and put in Graber’s hard drive, which Voit discovers has an upgraded version of his network on it. He’s hyped to tap in, but Green interrupts the party to talk about the current unsub the team is tracking down. The conversation pivots to Green’s sister and how Voit killed her. Green makes Voit recount why he targeted his sister and exactly how he killed her. The last thing she wanted was to talk to Green so that she would know that her son would be okay – which fit with the current unsub’s MO. It also confirms that the unsub and Voit know each other. While Voit is remembering more and more about his past, he’s also still going above and beyond to help the team. He helps Garcia supe up her computer so she can hack into Kyle’s live stream and is an integral part of bringing the unsub down. However, there’s more trouble on the way. The episode ends in chaos as the Quantico office goes into lockdown. Someone sends the BAU the same mask that Ronald was using when he murdered families, and Kyle informs Prentiss (Paget Brewster) that there’s more than one unsub that will be activated by his arrest. Things are going to really heat up from here. Criminal Minds: Evolution continues with new episodes every Thursday on Paramount+.

Criminal Minds

A disgruntled ex sets off a new trigger on Voit’s network

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

Garcia and Voit have unreal chemistry
We’re learning more about the why behind Voit and his network
Voit is becoming a more active part in every investigation

It’s extra terrifying when kids become the unsub victims
The unsub was not very creative or original