[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 18 Episode 7 “…All the Devils Are Here.”]
“I told Tyler this job is about loss, but we have been losing ever since Voit woke up,” Prentiss (Paget Brewster) tells Rossi (Joe Mantegna) in the Thursday, June 19, episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution, and she’s not wrong. It does feel like the BAU has been losing a lot this season.
First, there are the UnSubs of Voit’s (Zach Gilford) network and the cases. The first two die (by suicide), the third passes along an eerie message (“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here”), the fourth taunts the BAU by positing more than one will be activated with him captured, and now, in Episode 7, yes, the team captures two of the followers, but it feels like a small win in comparison. After all, they kill Voit’s former lawyer, Orlov (Brian White), too, after they’ve gotten everything they need from him. And the team is no closer to finding the “disciple,” the one who has taken over the network, by episode’s end.
It gets even worse with the latest cliffhanger: Tara (Aisha Tyler) has been shot by one of the network — or at least someone wearing the same mask (Yase-Otoko, representing a ghost suffering in hell) they do — and it’s not looking good. Sure, we know she survives since Tyler’s filming Season 19, but still.
Oh, and the one UnSub who isn’t part of the network? His daughter, whom he killed for after she was badly burned, murders him, then dies, too. Then, the team isn’t able to save the latest victim, despite their best efforts, and he dies after little explosives are set off inside of him in Episode 7. In a streaming season, consisting of 10 episodes? It’s quite notable.
Then there’s the fact that, in a way, the BAU is also losing when it comes to Voit. Following the attack on the serial killer to cap off Season 17, tests and brain scans are telling them that this isn’t the same person, that he’s no longer a psychopath, and with what’s in his brain to lead them to his network, they’ve had to treat him with kid gloves. And so Voit is no longer locked up, and there are all these questions about just how to deal with him. How is that fair to his victims, which include the members of the BAU, especially Rossi? Every deal they make with Voit for information is another loss.
And it’s not just on the job where the BAU is losing. The second episode ends with the devastating blow for JJ (A.J. Cook) of her husband Will’s (Josh Stewart) sudden death. She’s thrown herself back into her work following his funeral, butCriminal Minds: Evolution is continuing to track her grief, and that’s far from over.
So when is the BAU going to catch a break? Hopefully soon; after all, there are only three episodes left of the season, including the finale. And if anyone could use one? It’s this team right now.
Criminal Minds: Evolution, Thursdays, Paramount+