Season 17 of Criminal Minds (or Season 2 of Evolution) wraps up its overarching convoluted case in a hectic finale filled with mind-boggling revelations and a decent dash of psychological profiling. Epigenetics has been at the forefront of this season, where the usual police procedural structure gave way at the halfway point, and the BAU’s only priority was cracking the conspiracy theorists behind the Gold Star program. Throughout the season, we mainly follow Jade (Liana Liberato) and Damien (David Garelik), who were victims of the psycho-grooming program based on BAU’s own “white papers” at the Stuart house. However, by the time the finale rolls around, three of five of the trained assassins are dead, leaving Jade and a mysterious “Peter B.”
Episode 9 ends on a literally explosive cliffhanger, as Jade blows up Frank Church’s (Tuc Watkins) compound, where he had taken the “failed experiments” of the Stuart houses and groomed their psychopathy into killing machines. He had tricked them into believing he was targeting places like the Stuart house, but when they realized he was actually cultivating them, the five Gold Star members became targets. As we saw earlier in the season, the crew are not so easily killed, as they hunt down anyone associated with the program, ending with Church’s compound where he was trying to train a new generation of killers.
Emily Prentiss Is Kidnapped by Gold Star in the ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 2 Finale
After the explosion, the team realized that Church and Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) had been abducted and were forced to once again consult with Elias Voit (Zach Gilford) in this race against time. We see Jade execute Church as she points a gun to his head and asks him to confess his sins of pedophilia – he would take the girls in the middle of the night, so they believed the entire ordeal was just a dream. When he refuses to, she places a bullet between his eyes, as calm and stoic as ever. Jade turns to Emily, trying to get into her head by reminding her about the times she had been abducted and interrogated by Benjamin Cyrus, Ian Doyle, and Peter Lewis, a.k.a. “Mr. Scratch.” Emily, however, manages to delay this fate by invoking her right to a trial, which is when she discovers that Jade is working with Peter B.
Emily had been targeted throughout the entire season, from the moment Elias had muttered the words “Gold Star” on the phone in Season 16. Turns out Peter B. had been orchestrating these bizarre and demoralizing events from the background. Her conspiracy theorist neighbor accused her of assault, leading to her arrest and release. But these mugshots were released to the public, further tarnishing the BAU’s already precarious reputation. He was suspended then reinstated, and now kidnapped – David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) may be plagued with hallucinations, but Emily’s been on an inexplicable rollercoaster this season — finally, explained by the fact that someone, Peter B, really was out to get her. But who is Peter?
David Rossi Discovers Who the Last Gold Star Member Is in ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 2
It is Rossi who connects the dots, realizing that the B stands for Bailey – he was assistant FBI Director Doug Bailey’s (Nicholas D’Agosto) brother. This was actually teased in Season 16, via showrunner Erica Messer:
“We knew before that finale aired because there was a line that Prentiss had at the wake where she said “only son.” Before we mixed, we had Paget [Brewster] do ADR and we said, “Can you change only son to older son?” And she was like, “Okay, what are you doing?” And we were like, “Don’t worry about it.” So, we knew before we started fully breaking the season that we were gonna bring Bailey’s brother into it, in some way.”
Doug had always known that his younger brother was a conspiracy theorist and though they argued, they still enjoyed a close relationship. But when Peter was recruited by Gold Star, he had changed. He enjoyed the privilege of meeting his family on weekends and holidays, something the other members had not earned, and his new beliefs had increased friction between the brothers. The FBI Director had mainly kept Gold Star confidential to protect the BAU from a public debacle. The white papers created by Rossi and Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) may have initially started as a thought experiment in epigenetics that was buried, but Jill Gideon (Felicity Huffman) had “leaked” it and created the Stuart house in hopes of identifying psychopathic traits in teenagers, then curbing them. She had thought the project was abandoned and hadn’t realized they had instead started cultivating the traits instead of treating them.
As such, the BAU indirectly created this program. Aside from this very pertinent fact, the director had also kept the program on a need-to-know basis as a favor to Doug, so he didn’t have to face the “embarrassment” of having a conspiracy theorist as a brother. It is also why Doug had approached Elias alone in Season 16,wanting to ask about his brother’s involvement and welfare, but instead, he was shot dead.
Peter saw Doug’s death as the FBI’s fault, in particular, the BAU. Doug had been sending videos to Peter as a way of staying in touch. However, Peter noticed that some of the videos were deepfakes, possibly due to Church editing out messages he disapproved of. It also fueled his suspicions against the bureau, as he believed Doug was killed because he was a liability. Peter had also asked Elias via the dark net to create a program that would spot deepfakes in order to discern which of Doug’s videos were real. This connects to Jennifer Jareau’s (A.J. Cook) devastating storyline this season, which is satisfyingly wrapped up as she threatens to tell Elias’ wife that he had created the fake pornography by filming her without her consent or knowledge. Elias’s program is how the BAU determines Prentiss’ location, as each video that the program checked was tagged with his location – trust Elias to always scheme.
‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Wraps Up the Gold Star Program
Though Jade proclaims Emily guilty, she refrains from executing her and instead rigs the entrance of the hall, so the entire team dies with them. With Luke Alvez’s (Adam Rogriguez) gut instinct stopping them from triggering the explosives, the team decides to project a video to Peter and Jade, in which Elias talks about shooting Doug. Like Damien in a previous episode, Peter realizes everything he knows is a lie, releases Emily, and surrenders alongside Jade, who is still ready to shoot herself before entering another cage. However, Emily appeals to her by giving Jade the chance to tell her the truth in order to save other children in other versions of the Stuart house from the same fate.
Despite the horrific things they have done, from personally vindicating Emily to enucleating police officers, the two are treated as victims by Emily. They are still held accountable for their crimes but are allowed to reunite with loved ones in an attempt to break the cycle of violence inherent in the phrase: “hurt people hurt people.” The heartfelt closure of the Gold Star program is also accompanied by new beginnings for our other BAU characters. Tara Lewis (Aisha Taylor) and Rebecca (Nicole Pacent) start dating again, while Tyler Green (James Hatanaka) applies to Quantico and may eventually work alongside Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness). Rossi, however, is still hallucinating Elias, who has been transferred to a low-security prison and is slated to be released in 5 years due to a deal with the FBI after helping with the case.
Will Elias Voit Be in the Next Season of ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’?
The closing scene returns to Elias in the laundry room of the prison, innocently (if he ever can be) using the washing machines. When two prisoners walk in staring at him, he is immediately on high alert. He had been transferred to this prison under his birth name, Lee Duval, to avoid becoming a target for his serial killing tendencies – something that is frowned upon by inmates. However, somehow his Elias Voit identity had been exposed, leading to a scuffle between him and the two prisoners. Though one of them had a shiv, Elias manages to grab one of his own, giving him a fighting chance.
As the camera pans away in the middle of the fight, his fate is left unknown. Between Rossi’s vision and this scene, it is clear that we haven’t seen the last of this infamous serial killer yet, also confirmed by showrunner Messer in our interview: “He’s not done. I feel like, at the end of every season, he just finds a new way to cause trouble.” With Elias seemingly becoming a firm fixture in Criminal Minds and the team already writing up Evolution Season 3, it seems the BAU is not yet done making deals with the devil.