Criminal Minds: Evolution season 19, episode 4 was a wild ride and also brought on an anticipated guest star, Connor Storrie of Heated Rivalry fame. It was easy to see why the cast loved working with him since he played such a complicated character, one you didn’t necessarily like but also did not want any harm to come to them. So how did he become entangled with the BAU?
In the previous episode, serial killer Elias Voit got a series of letters from an enraged fan following his appearance on Brian Garrity’s podcast. Someone was clearly angry about being called pathetic. While Voit didn’t know who sent them, he did realize his outburst was the reason someone wanted his attention.
Criminal Minds: Evolution shows the team trying to figure out who Voit's biggest fan is
More letters came in the form of photos of a young woman. At first, it seemed like she could be a victim. However, Voit pointed out that if she were dead, the fan would have sent photos of her dead body. Instead, they were able to identify her as a woman named Laura Boyd.
Laura was not on social media anymore due to her ex-boyfriend, Lance Kingston (Connor Storrie). He seemed perfect at first, but then he began stalking her and had an angry outburst at work when their relationship ended, and she called the police. He lost his job, and she had to move and change her phone number to get away from him.
The team had already profiled Voit’s fan, but despite being a jerk, Lance did not fit the profile. He didn’t know the photos had been stolen, and while he still clearly held a candle for his ex-girlfriend, he was unbothered when a pen he used spilled ink. It didn’t lead him to have an outburst as they expected, but despite that, they couldn’t just let him go. Instead, they sent Luke in to talk to him. They not only wanted to make it clear how dangerous it was for him to have someone watching him, but they also warned him not to go near Laura.
Thinking that they were finished with him, the BAU sent him on his way while they provided Laura with security. However, when they talked to Voit, he told them that they basically played into his fan’s hand. Because the fan was focused on Lance and his activities, they confirmed for their unsub that they were focusing on something happening to a woman rather than the guy doing the stalking. Sure enough, at the end of the episode, Lance was abducted and placed in the back of a vehicle, unconscious.
Seeing Storrie go toe to toe with various members of the BAU was fun to watch. For a newer actor who was brought on before he worked on the Crave series that brought him fame, he did an amazing job working alongside the veteran actors who have been part of the show for so long. However things play out for Lance Kingston on the show, it’s going to be so fun to watch and see how Storrie portrays this complicated character who you don’t necessarily want to root for but don’t want to see become the victim of a deranged unsub.
Agent Tyler Green's evolving work as a profiler continues during a tense case
While Tara, JJ, and Luke were busy with Voit and the Lance Kingston case, the rest of the BAU went to Colorado Springs. An unsub was torturing married couples before murdering one and sparing the other. The case was very disturbing, especially since the victims were smashed to death with a hammer in front of their spouses.
This case also gave Agent Tyler Green the chance to work on his profiling methods. While he had some theories that didn’t necessarily work with the evidence, Dave Rossi encouraged him to explore any options he had. While he almost got into his head about drawing an incorrect conclusion, he did eventually land on an idea that helped solve the case.
Thanks to one of the surviving spouses' recollections, they learned the unsub wore a necklace with a vial of crystals inside of it. Along with the fact that he was calling for heresy from his victims, they figured out that the killer was going after people he thought were witches.
However, Rossi remembered an old book he once read in the 1980s during the height of Satanic Panic. It was an old idea that adultery was a form of heresy and that those who were found guilty were to be put to death by hammer. Unfortunately, none of the couples in the case knew one another or had other connections in common.
Green realized that the unsub made sure the couples’ children were never home and that he had to be connected to them. They had nothing in common, though; however, Rossi suggested it could be a substitute teacher they were looking for.
Sure enough, their unsub was a substitute teacher named Sean Fincher, who had just gone through a divorce, and his wife left him and moved their son to Arizona. Penelope found out where he last taught, and they were able to save his next target. Even though the father in the case did get hurt, they were both alive and reunited with their daughter.
Green was still feeling off about how his theory came almost too late, but both Emily Prentiss and Rossi gave him good advice. They told him that as long as he asked himself if he did the job and the answer was yes, then he could move forward.Â
It was great to see that Green is still working on his profiling and that even when he gets discouraged, the rest of the team gets him to talk it out so they can help him understand if he is wrong or right. He doesn’t get it perfect every time, but in this case, he was able to figure out the connection before another innocent person was killed.
Plus, the episode also gave us a glimpse into how JJ Jareau’s home life is going. Her son Henry hasn’t been talking to her much, and it turns out he was having second thoughts about going away to college. He wanted to stay with her and Michael, but JJ encouraged him to do what he wanted that would make him happy. She was honest about how things made her feel, but she also assured him that eventually they would be okay.
All in all, this was a solid episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution that showed there aren’t always perfect victims, and the team will work as hard as they can to provide justice where needed.Â
Watch new episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution every Thursday, streaming on Paramount+.
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