Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Episode 9Oooh, we are heading into the end game on Criminal Minds: Evolution. So much is happening in the penultimate episode, and the network is setting up such a convoluted narrative that every head in the BAU is spinning. To make matters worse, Elias Voit (Zach Gilford) and Dr. Ochoa (Aimee Garcia) are missing! Was this the network’s plan or Elias’? Let’s dig in.
The end of the last episode saw Tara (Aisha Tyler) make a full medical recovery, but the BAU did not make progress with who was controlling the network. This week requires the team to pivot their attention to the obvious leak in the case. It’s someone in the hospital, even though Prentiss (Paget Brewster) ruled that the staff around Voit needs to be turned over every two weeks.
Looking for the leak also leads to a new theory about who is running the network. Twist: The leak and the new head of the network are not necessarily the same person! I really needed that spelled out for me to be honest (and I’m not being sarcastic) because it’s very confusing at this point how many people we are looking for and why. It’s just one of the burning questions that needs to be tied up heading into next week’s season finale.
The BAU Is Getting Closer and Closer To Finding the Disciple
Fun fact: Rossi (Joe Mantegna) is taking charge of his mental health. He’s seeing a therapist and taking antidepressants. The therapy and the drugs are limiting his nightmare visions, and let me tell you, Tara is not the only one dancing over some proactive mental health choices! It’s good to see you on your feet, Dave.
The lack of nightmares has given Dave a clearer head to theorize with. What if The Disciple – the new head of the network, but not the leak – is a woman? We always assume it’s a disturbed man doing these heinous crimes, but the team realizes we’ve had more survivors this season than any previous entanglement with Voit. Someone soft is at the helm and protecting children from pedophiles in the network that wish to do them harm! The leak abducted a boy at the beginning of the episode, but The Disciple sent the boy relatively unharmed back to the BAU.
Rossi’s theory is proposed as the team discovers a female witness in Cyrus’ (Silas Weir Mitchell) old case files. A woman was interviewed in 2004, after Voit had left the house, about Cyrus’ potential involvement in a local case. She claimed to be Cyrus’ daughter and that he was out of the country, but the team knows that Cyrus never had any children. He found a new protégé after Voit left him, and this woman is the new lead suspect to be running the network.
As the BAU starts putting these puzzle pieces together, the network prepares for its final move. The unsubs who have been caught alive this season need to be taken off the board – including the leak who has too much information and is a danger to The Disciple. However, there’s no larger liability to the network and The Disciple than Elias Voit himself.
‘Criminal Minds’ Drops a Plot Twist Cliffhanger Before the Finale Episode
The BAU is still struggling to figure out how the network is finding out intimate details of the case, but the audience is a step ahead. We know that a male nurse on Voit’s rounds who goes by the name John, is the one leaking details of the case to the network…but he might also be working against The Disciple? His MO involves a gun with a silencer, and he’s helping to take out the collateral family members of the unsubs who allow themselves to be taken by the BAU and don’t kill themselves. But it’s still unclear exactly what the leaker, who we eventually learn goes by The Engineer, wants, and how that differs from The Disciple. We do know that The Engineer is considered a loose end by The Disciple.
Voit is, of course, the biggest loose end, though. He makes himself an even bigger target when he steals a cell phone from the nurse’s station early in the episode. He uses it to tell Lainey Torres (Alicia Urizar McCallum) and Ava Mackey (Audrina Miranda) to go on the run because he knows The Disciple and/or The Engineer will be looking for leverage over Kyle Mackey (Aaron Stanford), who is still in police custody after the BAU stopped him from burying his daughter alive in Episode 6. Voit doesn’t trust the BAU to keep them safe, so he took it upon himself to get them out of danger. Honestly, I can’t argue with his logic because the BAU has been missing a lot of crucial clues as they try to figure out this network situation.
Rossi eventually convinces Voit to let the team know where Lainey and Ava are so they can get them into protective custody. Prentiss also pulls strings to get protective details to watch over eight of the surviving witnesses in case the network or The Disciple decides to go on a murder blitz as the last move. When no one shows up at the appointed houses, Prentiss goes back to Kyle Mackey to demand more information about The Engineer and what the big final move may entail. Kyle swears he doesn’t know anything more, just that The Engineer laughed on the network, living just outside of the BAU zip code.
That sends the idea lights flashing in Prentiss’ brain. Now that Mackey mentions it, it has been weird how every case this season has been in the DC metropolitan area. I thought it was just a budget precaution, but it was actually part of the network plan to overwhelm the FBI. There are eight different teams out there, spreading the bureau thin and distracting them from the most valuable target – Voit.
Voit is at the hospital, getting chewed out by Ochoa for betraying her with the cell phone when Prentiss makes her realization. Ochoa is threatening to send Voit back to a minimum security prison when he realizes it’s too quiet in the hospital. He grabs her to keep her quiet and informs her that something is off. The flash of a gun with a silencer goes off multiple times in the hallway, and then we see the gunman walk into Voit’s hospital room, where Voit is still holding on to Ochoa. By the time Prentiss and Rossi arrive, most of the staff on Voit’s floor is dead. Voit and Ochoa are missing.
It’s a wild ending to a twisty episode, and there are so many questions going into Episode 10. Was it The Engineer or The Disciple walking into Voit’s room? How are The Engineer and The Disciple working together? Are they working together? Was this part of Voit’s plan? Do they want to kill him or just bring him back to serial killer mode? If The Disciple has a semblance of a conscience, could she and Voit bond over that? How is the team going to find all of these missing people before it’s too late?
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 finale will drop next Thursday, July 10 on Paramount+.
Criminal Minds
The network sets up a puzzling endgame with a deadly opening move
- Release Date
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September 22, 2005
- Network
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CBS, Paramount+
- Holy cliffhanger, Batman! I’m so intrigued
- The BAU is finally performing on their A-game
- It’s genuinely baffling what side Voit is on at this point, which maks the finale more exciting
- The relationship between The Engineer and The Disciple doesn’t need to be this complicated