Spoilers for the 18th season finale of Criminal Minds
When Criminal Minds was rebooted for the streaming era as Criminal Minds: Evolution, the focus shifted away from case-of-the-week storytelling and toward a serialized narrative. The first season of Evolution introduced Elias Voit, played by Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights). During the pandemic, Voit created an underground network of serial killers that has kept the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) busy ever since.
Three seasons later, Voit — also known as the Sicarious killer — is still around. And after this week’s season finale, it looks like he’s not going away anytime soon.
The good news is that the BAU has apparently dismantled the serial killer network. The episode centers on the Disciple — a woman named Tessa (Jordana Spiro), who was abducted twenty years ago by Voit’s abusive father, Cyrus. After Voit left home, Cyrus kidnapped Tessa, who was a PhD student at the time. She had recently been sexually assaulted by a professor and was drowning her sorrows at a bar when she met Cyrus. He brainwashed her and kept her captive for two decades. After Voit eventually killed his father, Tessa escaped, but instead of returning to her old life, she joined Voit’s network, determined to become his partner in serial killing.
The problem, alas, is that Voit was recently beaten into a coma, lost his memory (at least temporarily), and gained empathy. All season, he’s been willingly helping the BAU dismantle his own network. Tessa believes she can snap him out of it. She kidnaps both Voit and his therapist, Julia Ochoa (Aimee Garcia), convinced that if she forces Voit to kill Julia, it will reawaken the Sicarious persona.
Voit, however, has formed a genuine bond with Julia. When the moment comes, rather than kill her, he attacks and kills one of Tessa’s henchmen, the Engineer. Voit then claims the act made him feel “like a god,” implying that Sicarious is back.
But it’s a ruse. Pretending to be Sicarious, Voit gains Tessa’s trust and performs some hand-wavy computer wizardry ostensibly to help her while secretly planting code that allows the BAU to locate her. Tessa briefly escapes before being apprehended. Voit then urges the BAU to kill him, warning that if they don’t, he’ll murder Julia. But Julia calls his bluff, insisting his empathy remains intact. She’s right. Voit doesn’t kill her and is taken into custody.
Now that the serial killer network is gone, Voit is no longer needed as the BAU’s Hannibal Lecter-like consultant. He’s returned to prison, but not before receiving an outpouring of sympathy from the team. Voit had, in some ways, become one of them. They recognize that while Sicarious may be dead, the empathetic man left behind still has to pay for his crimes.
But as Voit rides the prison transport bus, he has a violent daydream about killing another inmate, suggesting that Sicarious might not be entirely gone after all. The trauma of the episode’s events may have reawakened his inner killer.
In other words, Voit is probably sticking around. And given that Tessa is still alive — and played by a recognizable actress in Jordana Spiro — it’s possible she’ll return as well. You may also notice that in this recap, there’s little mention of any BAU agents by name. That’s because, over the last three seasons, Criminal Minds has basically become The Voit Show. Gilford is excellent in the role, but his presence dominates the series. The other characters get some personal moments (JJ mourns her husband, Tara gets engaged), but most of their screen time is framed by how they interact with Voit.
It’s getting old. If the next season finds Voit escaping prison and slipping back into his Sicarious persona, it’s going to feel tired and redundant. Criminal Minds needs to move on. It should return to what made it compelling in the first place: the investigative brilliance of Rossi, JJ, Emily, Adam, and Tara, with Penelope doing her magic behind the computer. Right now, Voit is beginning to resemble Negan from The Walking Dead — an irredeemable villain who’s dragged through endless cycles of pseudo-redemption. We’ve seen it all before.
We’re done here, Voit. Let Zach Gilford return to the Mike Flanagan universe from whence he came.
