‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’s New Season 4 Villain Is Major Game-Changer

It’s been a while since Criminal Minds ventured into the world of the occult, and the latest episode, Season 4, Episode 4, reminds us exactly why these episodes can be so chilling. They lead to some of the most creative and grisly MOs, making some of the most memorable scenes in the show. Alongside the gruesome case-of-the-week, this episode finally and firmly puts the season’s overarching antagonist on the BAU’s radar, as the cat and mouse chase for the Fan begins, but the case is like nothing the team has dealt with before. The Fan may just seem like another copycat killer, but with his idol alive and imprisoned, Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), the rules of the profile have changed, and the stakes have just gotten higher.

‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 4, Episode 4 Delivers a Fanatic Witch Hunt

Episode 4 kicks off with the graphic scene of the unsub swinging a sledgehammer onto a woman’s body while her restrained husband watches in absolute horror and grief. The unsub is screaming at them to confess to heresy as a vial of a crystalline substance hangs on his neck, creating a dismally haunting image. The BAU begins their investigation by conducting an interview with the husband, who was left alive, and finds out a few major things: the unsub waits for the children to leave the house first, the vial around his neck is salt, and he is searching for a specific confession. Prentiss (Paget Brewster) adds up the details, including the occult references, the trial-like aspects, and the violence against women, and her instincts (or as she phrases it, biases) lead her to witch hunts.

However, when the unsub strikes again, this time killing the husband and leaving the wife alive, the team finds out that the husband was having an affair — all the murder victims were. Soon enough, Rossi (Joe Mantegna) draws on his years of experience and digs out a religious manifesto used during medieval times that purported a direct correlation between infidelity and being a witch, a text with a title that roughly translates to “Hammer of Witches.” From this, the familiar sequence of the team delivering a profile ensues: a highly educated man, obsessed with this text, who looks non-threatening and has issues with infidelity. What’s more exciting and nostalgic is when Rossi uses the term “moral enforcer,” taking us back to the days when each unsub fit into different profile categories like “sexual sadist” or “angel of death.”

The final piece of this creepy puzzle slots into place when the team looks into why the unsub waits for the children to leave the house first. They eventually figure out that he is a substitute teacher who forms a connection with the children, finding out about their parents’ affairs and using his knowledge of their schedule to plan the murders. By figuring out this final connection between the victims, the team can stop the most recent attack just in time, saving the couple from the same grisly fate while the unsub is shot down by Green (Ryan-James Hatanaka). It may not be the most complex case of this season so far, but the ritualistic imagery of the unsub’s MO makes it an engaging and chilling watch.

A Budding Mentorship Evolves Between Rossi and Green in ‘Criminal Minds’

Image via Paramount

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Evolution Season 4, Episode 4, also continues J.J.’s (A.J. Cook) storyline around navigating life without her husband, and this time, she is dealing with her relationship with her firstborn son, Henry (Mekhai Anderson). Alvez (Adam Rodriguez) accidentally tells her that Henry is thinking about going to a local college instead of heading to California as he originally planned. After the case, she and Henry share ice cream and talk about the future, where she admits to being exhausted but promises to always support his dreams. The scene is slightly awkward, and the storyline feels a tad out of place, but there is something comforting about watching J.J.’s domestic life, even if Will (Josh Stewart) isn’t a part of it anymore.

This episode also delivers a relationship we haven’t had since the early seasons of Criminal Minds: mentorship. The previous one was between Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) during the very first season, but with Green being a rookie in the show, it provides an opportunity for the usually wry and distant Rossi to mentor someone. The show introduced the idea in the previous episode, but here, their bond is fleshed out into something less awkward and more meaningful. Rossi consistently encourages Green to voice his ideas and theories, even when he is completely off-track, allowing the rookie to “get his reps in” and learn to connect behavioral clues together. With Green’s self-doubt and eager-to-please attitude combined with Rossi’s penchant for teasing and suave, almost arrogant demeanor, it makes for playful and fun teaching scenes.

‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Officially Sets Up the Season 4 Villain

Image via Paramount

Meanwhile, Lewis (Aisha Tyler) is on her separate assignment of psychoanalyzing Voit, but things come to a halt when he shows them the pages he received from the Fan at the end of the previous episode. Lewis speaks to Voit about how he handled the podcast interview, reminding him that his “celebrity has influence,” once again tying the episode to the power of true crime in this day and age. However, Voit also has some interesting insights into the Fan, where he highlights how the meticulously created notes that were made using an authentic typewriter were the beginning of the Fan’s evolution: he hasn’t killed yet, but his homicidal fantasies and obsessiveness are depicted in how he is challenging Voit and the FBI. But things really ramp up when the Fan sends photos of a Jane Doe to the bureau.

They identify the woman as an intern named Laura who lives in Pennsylvania, and upon bringing her in, they find out that the pictures were taken by her ex-boyfriend, Lance (Connor Storrie), who started obsessively stalking her after they broke up. However, upon interrogating Lance, J.J. and Lewis determine that he cannot be the Fan since he was too volatile in his emotions and didn’t have the level of obsessive compulsion the Fan had demonstrated in his notes. Of course, the women don’t let Lance leave without sending Avez in to scare the guy into stopping his stalking activities, which turns into a fun scene of manipulation.

Upon reconvening with Voit, they determine that the pictures and the breadcrumbs to Lance were a Trojan horse. Lance was the kind of person to angrily complain about the BAU for detaining him temporarily, which would give the Fan insights into how the team operated, including their interrogation techniques and profiling process. He is trying to gather as much information as he can before striking, making him a dangerous foe who is incredibly difficult to profile at the moment. Much of this episode is simply about setting up the new “big bad,” so it somewhat plays out like a filler episode, but still incites anticipation for the rest of the season.

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Release Date

September 22, 2005

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Showrunner

Erica Messer

Directors

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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

Writers

Bruce Zimmerman, Virgil Williams, Edward Allen Bernero, Janine Sherman Barrois, Chris Mundy, Simon Mirren, Debra J. Fisher, Kimberly A. Harrison, Jay Beattie, Dan Dworkin, Karen Maser, Oanh Ly, Stephanie Sengupta, Aaron Zelman, Kirsten Vangsness, Erica Meredith, Andi Bushell, Holly Harold, Alicia Kirk, Jeff Davis, Randy Huggins, Edward Napier, Jayne A. Archer, Chikodili Agwuna

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Pros & Cons

• The episode sets the Fan up as a dangerous and unpredictable villain, drumming up anticipation.
• The central case is as chilling and fun as the show’s usual content.
• Rossi and Green’s bond is fun and nostalgic to watch.

• Most of the episode is filler and, subsequently, can feel a little random.