Below, show boss Erica Messer gives us a look at what’s ahead for the “Criminal Minds: Evolution” team this season.
TVLINE | Let’s talk about Voit first. He’s locked up and more of a resource for the team this season, but he’s not not a threat.
ERICA MESSER | He seemed almost just irredeemable in the beginning of his journey with us. Like, he’s a, he’s a family man, and we kind of love him for that, and then we realized what he’s been: He’s the big bad that the team is looking for. It’s like, how could this guy who has this life also be that guy? So the challenge of that was interesting. And, of course, giving him a backstory of losing his parents when he was young and being raised by an uncle who was a killer, basically, kind of taught him everything he knew.
So when you then make him forget all of that, he’s like a blank slate. He doesn’t remember being this killer that we know he is. But also, he doesn’t know that he’s a dad with kids. So when all of those things start to trickle back in, and it’s like, “I have a wife, and I have kids, and why haven’t I seen them? Why don’t they want to see me?”… It’s like, “Because you’re a killer.” Can you imagine? You have a blank slate of a brain, and then you’re being told who you were before was this serial killer. We needed him to awaken a lot of that side of himself in that season to help us stop The Disciple. And now that’s reawakened, but not to the point of — he doesn’t want to kill. He will, if he has to, for like self-defense or something. But this isn’t a guy who wants to have blood on his face and be a killer again.
It’s just this idea that, “I did all these horrible things. I made choices for a long time to do these horrible things, and now these are the consequences: that I’m going to rot away in prison for the rest of my life. And, I mean, I want challenges so my day goes differently, but I don’t want to talk about what I did.” And that’s all the BAU wants to talk about, because they’re gathering their research to stop somebody else from doing what I did. So it’s like the only visitors he gets in a day are people who want to talk about the worst part of him. And that was just interesting to us. It’s more about what the team hasn’t been challenged with before, and I feel like Elias Voit is the answer to a lot of that.
TVLINE | He’s got a copycat killer this season. The BAU has been doing this for a long time. How is this copycat getting under their skin and challenging them in ways they maybe haven’t been challenged before? And how do you keep a copycat serial killer fresh in this day and age?
The biggest answer comes at the end of the season. We take all the ingredients that are unique to “Criminal Minds,” and we give you something that only “Criminal Minds” would give you.
I don’t want to spoil any of it. I totally get what you’re saying: It’s been done before; why is it different now? I think it’s different because of the BAU’s connection with Elias Voit and the deep dive into that character, into that world, into every aspect of that world.
TVLINE | The first two episodes start to get at the big arc you previewed Alvez would have this season. Who will we see him confide in?
By the end of Episode 2, you’ll sort of know what kicks off this journey for him this year. It’s a loss that changes you, that changes your identity. Obviously, Garcia is the shoulder that he leans on in that episode. But moving forward in the season, it’s really Alvez and JJ who get to connect, because the two freshest losses are in their two storylines. So, they get to bond in a in a way that we haven’t really been able to explore before.
And then, she’s on a journey now as a widow, but also life goes on, and she’s getting her kid to college and all of that. So there’s going to be a big change in her world where, once one kid if out of the house and you’re like, “Oh my God, the second ones going to leave before I know it. And then what?”
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