The following contains spoilers from the Criminal Minds: Evolution finale, now streaming on Paramount+.
Criminal Minds: Evolution closed out its latest run on Thursday by revealing that Jade aka GS5 had survived her exploding of the AIDA compound. She then took both Prentiss (Paget Brewster) and AIDA CEO Frank Church (guest star Tuc Watkins) hostage — with help from the fifth, never-before-seen Gold Star, Pete Bailey, as in dearly departed FBI Deputy Director Doug Bailey’s kid brother!
We and Emily learned that Pete held the BAU responsible for Doug’s death, his POV corrupted as it was by fake news and conspiracy theories. But with help from Garcia, who piped Elias Voit’s confession to Doug’s murder into the room where Prentiss was being held captive, Pete came to realize the truth, and the BAU saved the day.
TVLine spoke with Criminal Minds showrunner Erica Messer about teeing up that Pete Bailey reveal, a fierce “first” for Garcia, and how next season might different from the Voit-heavy past two.
TVLINE | At what point last season did you realize you’d want to dive deeper and deeper into Gold Star, and continue the Elias Voit arc throughout this season?
It wasn’t really until the [Season 16] finale, when Doug Bailey hears [Voit mention] “Gold Star” and then shows up and gets shot. I would say we didn’t necessarily know all of the parts [of Season 17], but we knew that his brother would be involved.
We actually had written a line [toward the end of the Season 16 finale] where Paget did the eulogy [for Doug] and says she told the father “your only son died a hero.” Before that aired, we went to Paget and said, “We need to ADR [automated dialogue replacement] — can you say his oldest son died a hero?” She was like, “What are you up to?” and we were like, “Don’t worry about it!” [Laughs] We had to go back and course-correct a bit because we knew where we were taking the story, and Pete would be involved.
TVLINE | Did the “North Star” white paper exist back then, or not yet?
I always wanted to tie it to the history of the BAU. We didn’t necessarily have the language that it was “a white paper,” but it was about Rossi not knowing that he had any hand in [creating Gold Star]. And to bring in Jill Gideon, I of course didn’t know she would be [played by] Felicity [Huffman], and that was such a win.
TVLINE | Speaking of casting, obviously Zach Gilford as Voit was instrumental to Evolution‘s first season. And we just gave Liana Liberato a Performer of the Week for Episode 9. How important was casting Jade for this season?
I mean, it was so important. We met a lot of amazing actors for that, because we introduced her in Episode 4 and we knew that she was going to be teaming up with Damien and all of that….
TVLINE | You did the “Bonnie and Clyde” thing for a bit.
Totally. In fact, the initial anticipation was we might have them be on the run as “Bonnie and Clyde” for two episodes, and we ended up pulling back on that and had them do all their damage off-screen. So by the time we catch up with them, she has a lot of eyes tattooed on her forearm to show what they’d been up to since we last saw them. Yeah, Liana’s incredible — she was everything we needed her to be and then some. When she read Episode 9, she came on set when we were shooting Episode, like, “Oh no, poor Jade!” We said, “No, she’s actually not going to die! I would have told you.”
TVLINE | I was not expecting her to survive, either!
I know, my husband still thinks [she didn’t] because he’s watching it on Paramount+. He’s like, “Jade’s dead?!?” He’ll be surprised. Yeah, she’s just too good to not keep waiting in the wings. Gold Star is done this season, so we’re not revisiting that, but the fact that we know we’ve got her character in that depth of trauma that she went through…
TVLINE | At the end, I was maybe one-quarter expecting Emily to offer to foster her or something.
[Laughs] Well, [AIDA recruit] Mila is 16 or so, so…. Mila probably needs somebody to look after her.
TVLINE | So, we are d-o-n-e done with Gold Star?
Yeah.
TVLINE | Season 3, no Gold Star…. No North Star…. No Elias Voit…?
Mmmmm….. I wouldn’t say that. He threw us the curve ball with Gold Star, he wanted us on a new quest. But what did he distract us from? His network.
TVLINE | Will Season 3 be a 100% new case?
Not 100%, because we still have Voit in our life. It’s a bit more hybrid. Remember, we didn’t solve Gold Star really until we caught Damien, so that was sort of an ongoing story for most of the season. This [next] season will feel a little different, where we’re solving standalone “Catch the Bad Guy” cases.
TVLINE | In the finale, there’s a moment where Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) takes off her glasses to stare down Voit. I know she doesn’t take them off often, but I was trying to recall, has she taken them off ever?
We’d have to ask Kirsten because she would know the play-by-play, but she certainly has not done it as a story point, and that to me felt like a move. That was certainly the first time she made a moment of taking her glasses off.
TVLINE | This season was really intense. Might next season lighten things up a bit? Give the team more wins? Because the BAU was getting their ass kicked for a lot of this season.
I know…. They’ve not had a break, they don’t come up for air. It’s different [next] season but it’s still a lot. More things happen to this team, but it’s a different kind of pace, a different exhaustion.
Want scoop on Criminal Minds: Evolution, or for any other TV show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
