Reviewer Rating: 3.2/5.0
3.2
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 Episode 9 revealed so much that it was hard to keep up.
If you need a refresher, you can visit the link above, but honestly, it’s hard to even write down all the relevant details.
When BAU agents have an idea or theory, there’s nothing stopping them from spinning a great story to back it up!
The true face of the puppet master is revealed
Just like the BAU, the revelation of the puppet master behind Venus caught us off guard. If his motives were transparent, I might need a little help understanding his intentions.
In a way that only television and movies allow, Penelope crafts an algorithm that connects roughly two dozen different individuals to a mercenary organization run by a company called Aida.
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How or why do they use children to do their bidding?
You can imagine the benefit of using young, unrecognizable faces to commit atrocities simply because they are easily manipulated.
Indoctrinate children when they are most vulnerable
Look at it like this. Significant changes occur in the brains of adolescents aged 13 to 19 years, particularly in the prefrontal cortex.
This is the area involved in decision-making, impulse control, and complex thinking. This period of their lives is characterized by increased risk-taking and mood swings.
Brain development continues into your 20s, with the prefrontal cortex being one of the last areas to mature. This part of the brain is critical for planning, prioritizing, and understanding the consequences of actions.
Criminal Minds may not have intended to do this, but they tap into the ongoing discussion about issues like this that goes on every day in America.
If you can catch them in their developmental stages, it seems much easier to indoctrinate them. How you influence someone during this stage of growth will definitely have a lasting impact.
It’s enough to break your heart in half when you think about how many children have witnessed and experienced traumatic events while growing up.
How Jade and Damien’s love conquers all
At least Jade and Damian are pawns in an adult game. What those in charge didn’t think about was what would happen if two or more subjects developed a stronger relationship than the one they had forced upon them.
Frank Church is a nasty man. Although Penelope described him as a dynamic man, he was anything but charming. Garcia, we can agree to disagree on this. You need to be charismatic to be charismatic, and church doesn’t meet that requirement.
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This guy is a heartless psychopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He beat children to further his career and believed he had all the answers.
Jade and Damian died, but they died on their own terms and driven by their love. Given their suffering and crime, they will never get a traditional happy ending. But dying knowing that you had found a deep love wasn’t so bad in the end.
Frank Church screwed himself by ignoring the extent to which positive influences between two subjects could alter their trajectories.
Venus falls apart
We don’t know what happens next, but Jed sets off events in Criminal Minds: Evolution that the Church may not be able to correct.
Jade helps the others escape with the help of a 16-year-old runaway named Nila (I think), for whom she shows compassion.
It turns out that if you get a bunch of kids upset, you have to count on them not talking to each other. It’s astounding that the church has been able to do this for so long. When Jade and Nila compare notes, Jade realizes her nightmare is very much alive.
She devises an escape plan for herself, which greatly damages Church’s control of the situation. With the BAU’s help, he’s less likely to round up the kids and continue with his plan.
But one outlier named Peter remains at the forefront. No doubt Church will reach out to him to help close the gap. If Nila trusts Jed, then Peter might be able to swoop in and undo that. Or, he could kill Nila so she can take the nightmare to her grave.
I expect this story to wrap up this season, opening up a new chapter in the investigation for Criminal Minds Season 18 (if it’s in our future).
Elias Voight prepares to serve prison sentence
Elias Voight is going to jail. Unfortunately for us, he was going to the Fed Club, a minimum security prison that would be easy for someone like him to escape from.
He is now working virtually with his lawyer Vincent and I need to know if there are any rules regarding lawyers in this regard. Is it that easy to have a lawyer become your lackey with no consequences?
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Rossi wants Voight killed in prison, but the likelihood of that happening in minimum security is unlikely because it would be easy for everyone to just go with the flow.
Vincent even arranged for Voight to spend his time under the name Lee Duval to minimize potential threats. If the media didn’t publish his birth name when they reported this story, they didn’t dig deep enough.
But can Criminal Minds: Evolution let Elias Voight go easily? He has been part of this new story from the beginning.
Is his inclusion what makes Evolution different, or is it the longer arc that makes the difference?
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3?
Voight’s imprisonment has little impact on his involvement in the story.
It became clear after “The Star-Spangled Banner” that he still had a large network of collaborators with Sicarius. For all we know, Vincent may be running it.
Gill describes the many potential anomalies, including the multiple Stuart houses that were explored, as well as details found in the bunker that indicate the BAU is the hottest target in town and Voight has a lot to do.
Can the BAU get rid of what they saw in the bunker? We don’t even know if JJ is safe after being exploited in a deeply fake sexploitation film.
With only one episode left, there’s still a lot to discuss as a viewer and as an agent. Where does it all end? Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 Episode 10 may provide the answer, or it may lead us directly into the next adventure.
