Criminal Minds: Evolution Season Four ☆☆☆☆

Starring: Kirsten Vangsness, A.J. Cook, Joe Mantegna, Paget Brewster, Aisha Tyler, Adam Rodriguez, RJ Hatanaka and Zach Gilford

Created by: Erica Messer

Criminal Minds: Evolution returns with a fourth season, and it has been a whole year since the BAU took down the Sicarius network, but fortunately, everyone has stuck around. Instead of reuniting us with our favorite team in an Avengers Assemble scene like last season, this two-episode premiere thankfully plays out more organically. We see Prentiss (Paget Brewster) and Rossi (Joe Mantegna) sharing a drink and complaining about the perpetual influence Voit (Zach Gilford) still has on the public, while Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) is helping J.J. (A.J. Cook) move out of the home she shared with her late husband. Meanwhile, Alvez (Adam Rodriguez) and Green (Ryan-James Hatanaka) have been called out to investigate a shot-gunned corpse near the highway and a two-person abduction.

While the team returns to the rhythmic throes of a chilling investigation, Lewis (Aisha Tyler) volunteers for the unfortunate but important assignment of interviewing Voit to gather more information about his ability to hide his psychopathy and maintain a civilian lifestyle. Since gaining his memories back, he’s complied with the BAU’s requests and struggled with his resurfacing homicidal urges, making the character a fascinating case study. However, he is also an idol to the season’s new elusive antagonist, “The Fan”.

In Episode 1, the BAU manages to connect the death and abductions to a cold case from 30 years ago, where a man was found with a shotgun wound in his chest by the highway and his wife was found alive. Green shows his worth as the newest member of the team through an intuitive question about smell, to which (the victim) was able to specify that her attacker smelled like the kind of tobacco from cigars. There kicks off Garcia’s tech-savvy sequence, which is always a delight to watch, where the team is able to narrow down where these new victims are being held.

Turns out, the new perpetrators of the most recent abductions were also holding a second couple, torturing them in the same manner for a few weeks. Their father is in the hospital, and they share the sadistic pleasure between them by Face-Timing him and taking videos to show him their grisly handiwork. Fortunately, the team arrives before anyone succumbs to murder and arrests the perpetrators, wrapping up a chilling case of “how to turn someone into a killer.”

Episode 2 doesn’t falter in its psychological horror, as it kicks off with a self-inflicted explosion, though the truth is much darker. One of Alvez’s buddies from the military recovery program arrives at the BAU with this case, and as the body count racks up, the team figures out that it is a war veteran with a brain tumour that causes him unimaginable pain who is responsible for it. He targets everyone who promised to help him ease the pain and fails, driven by an irrepressible anger and desperation, where he only feels relief after the dopamine rush of murder. Criminal Minds delivers two horrific and brilliant cases to kick off the new season.

During these cases, J.J. and Alvez are the two highlighted team members whose personal stories are on full display. Episode 1 reminds us of the previous season’s huge loss, J.J.’s husband Will (Josh Stewart), as the grieving agent and mother of two boys packs up the house she and Will built together and moves on. She ends up bonding with the survivor just before the cognitive interview, as they both have sons leaving for college, and J.J. has to face the fact that she will eventually be an empty nester. Alone. It’s a grim revelation, and our hearts break when we see the flicker of dread on her face, but luckily, she won’t have to face the reality for several years yet.

Throughout the second episode, Alvez is in a much more visceral state, as we’re treated to frequent dizzying flashbacks of him at a hospital, being delivered news about someone he loves not making it. The second we hear “she,” we fear the worst and by the end, we discover we’re correct. Alvez’s reliable and ever-present buddy, who has been by his side since he was in the veteran recovery program, dies from a terminal illness: Roxy. The death of a dog is always devastating, especially since we know she’s the love of Alvez’s life, ending the Season 4 premiere on a teary note.

While the team runs around, Lewis is trapped in an interview room with Voit, combing through his mind to figure out what makes him tick. Voit is forced to confront his influence during a hilarious subplot in Episode 2, where Prentiss’s old friend demands an interview with the notorious killer for his trending podcast, The Sicarius Files. The truth had become so skewed, with rumours that Voit was trained by the government, that Prentiss eventually agreed. During the interview, Voit delivers the performance of a lifetime, making it abundantly clear that he was like any other sadist chasing a high and ridicules the audience for romanticising his crimes.

Between dealing with the rigamarole of true-crime media, Voit also confronts his fears of meeting with his victims’ families, who have requested audiences for closure. He doesn’t believe it would help them, but eventually agrees, leading to a provocative scene where the mother of one of his victims calmly speaks to him while looking him in the eye, admitting that she was probably holding onto the past too tightly but didn’t know what else to do. As he faces the destruction he left in his wake, he is also still hallucinating Rossi, who’s become a deadly mirror that taunts him for his homicidal tendencies. We are left with the chilling image of him assessing his prison cell, avoiding the fact that he is instinctively looking for an escape.

The Evolution Season 4 premiere launches straight into the deep end with personal tragedies of the BAU and cases that immediately send shivers down our spines. It continues its sharp and precise exploration into what drives someone to commit heinous crimes, while also expanding its reach into true-crime media, clearly setting up the upcoming introduction of the Fan.

– Courtesy: Collider.com

Rating system: *Not on your life * ½ If you really must waste your time ** Hardly worth the bother ** ½ Okay for a slow afternoon only *** Good enough for a look see *** ½ Recommended viewing **** Don’t miss it **** ½ Almost perfect ***** Perfection