Criminal Minds: Evolution ended its 17th season with the BAU celebrating while elsewhere, one of its major characters was in a life-or-death situation—but his fate isn’t too up in the air. Rather, we’re left with questions about what led to that ending for Voit (Zach Gilford) and what it means going forward.
And thanks to TV Insider’s interview with showrunner Erica Messer, we also have some teases about what to expect in Season 18, including which agents will be at the center of the trauma (after Joe Mantegna‘s Rossi, then Paget Brewster‘s Prentiss were in 16 and 17), which just leaves us with more questions. Plus, what about that agent’s sibling that was mentioned in the finale?
Below, we take a look at those and more burning questions for Season 18.
Criminal Minds: Evolution, Season 18, TBA, Paramount+
What happened to Voit?
In the Season 17 finale, Voit, in general population under his birth name Lee Duval, was identified as a serial killer by fellow inmates, attacked, and stabbed. His fate was unknown, but Messer promised that he’s part of the show for all of next season. “We have so many fun options at the end of that finale and questions of, who are these people? Is it just a random attack on a guy in the laundry room? No. And what was Voit’s hand in any of that?” she shared. Voit setting that up for some nefarious purpose does seem very possible.
We can’t help but wonder if Rossi may have had some involvement in what happened, perhaps just letting slip in some way who Voit really is, and according to the showrunner, “That is definitely a working theory.”
What kind of trauma will JJ and Lewis be put through next season?
While Messer admitted that as planning for Season 18 begins, “it’s everybody” who seems to be going through trauma, “JJ [A.J. Cook] and Lewis [Aisha Tyler] have really big stories this season. I would say working our way down the call sheet.” And this will be coming after the finale revealed that Lewis and Rebecca (Nicole Pacent) got back together. “There’ll be some surprises this season in that world,” Messer promised. Meanwhile, Season 17 saw JJ learn about BAU Gate, a site on the dark web with deepfaked porn images of herself. Will her trauma be related to that? Speaking of…
How will BAU Gate continue to affect JJ?
We did consider it one of the most—if not the most—disturbing storylines of the series. It took a bit for JJ and Prentiss (who had known about it and hadn’t told her friend) to discuss it, but they did eventually clear the air. And it’s not something that can just go away; after all, once something’s on the internet…
“It will be alive in the same way that a horrible attack like that is always there. It’s always something that happened to you and it’s always something you’re afraid of,” said Messer. “She told Prentiss, ‘I’m afraid that one of my kids’ friends is going to see it.’ And so that fear is still a part of her this season because that happened to her. And even though we hope it’s been stopped, as this show has said over and over, once it’s out there, it’s hard to rein it in.”
Will Prentiss’ sister be introduced?
In a flashback in the finale, Prentiss told Bailey (Nicholas D’Agosto) that she has a sister. “Maybe” we’ll see her next season, according to Messer.
And if you were surprised to hear that tidbit of Prentiss’ life, you weren’t the only one. “We were all texting each other like, ‘Wait, does Prentiss have a sister?’ And we were all trying to reach out to other departments and say, ‘Hey, do you remember Prentiss ever talking about having a sister or being an only child? What do we know?’” Brewster told us. “And apparently, someone found somewhere that yes, either we’d never mentioned it or it’s possible that Prentis had a sister. So that’s where we went with it—which is cool for me because maybe at some point, my sister shows up. Who could that be? That would be exciting.”
She added, “Clearly, they have problems because in the elevator Prentiss is like, ‘Yeah, I have a sister,’ clearly not happy with her. And I asked them, ‘Is it okay if that’s the spin I put on the sister that it’s not easy, it’s not rosy, it’s not perfect?’ Clearly, they’re estranged because we’ve never met her. So I wanted to make the possibility of Prentiss’ sister come alive as a possible root in a story just so that if the writers choose to use it, they have somewhere to go. And now we know going in that, oh, Prentiss and her sister aren’t necessarily getting along. I don’t know, maybe that was a seed the writers can use or not.”
What will the Rossi-Voit dynamic be like?
Each of the first two seasons has presented a slightly different dynamic between the agent and the serial killer who abducted him. Season 17 introduced a version that Rossi hallucinated, and the finale saw the door sort of shut on him. “We wanted him to have some kind of closure to these visions that he’s having and it felt like that was the cleanest way to do it,” Messer explained. “It’s like, okay, I need to get you out of my head and move on. And he does in that sense. But it really does open the door for a whole ‘nother Voit-Rossi relationship in the next season.”
Meanwhile, Gilford said, “I think there is something there for the two of them to build a bit of a mutual—respect [may not be the right word], I can’t come up with a word right now, but just a little like, ‘Oh, I see you. Okay, you’re a human.’ I just want them to see each other as humans.” Something tells us that will never happen from Rossi’s side.
Will any past characters return?
Season 17 delved deep into the history of the BAU, with a paper from the early days of Rossi, Gideon, and Jill (Felicity Huffman) what led to the creation of Gold Star, and it also saw the return of Paul F. Tompkins as Brian Garrity. Past members of the team—Hotch and Morgan, who have left, and Reid, who’s on sabbatical/special assignment, depending on who’s in the know—were brought up as well. Whether we see Matthew Gray Gubler and Daniel Henney back as Reid and Simmons, respectively, remains up to scheduling.
And as for looking at the history of the unit in the same way Season 17 did, it doesn’t sound like that’s in the cards. “We always love to talk about what got us here and who got us here and that kind of thing. But I mean specifically going as deep as we did last season, probably not,” said Messer. “Although it was really fun to trace the Gold Star program all the way back to the BAU. That was pretty great.”
Will Voit’s network be a major player?
When Voit was introduced in Season 16, it was with an online network of serial killers. That network came into play again in Season 17—it’s where he met his lawyer, using online images to pose as a killer. And they remain out there. With Criminal Minds now a streaming show for Evolution, they’re able to lean into networks and groups like they have these past two seasons.
“We’ve decided to lean in because we do have Zach with us again this year and it feels like he is the creator of so much chaos that it felt like we don’t need to reinvent that wheel. He set a lot of things into motion and so we’re still in his orbit of evil,” Messer explained, agreeing that there’s still quite a bit left unexplored about his network.