Criminal Minds season 19, 5pisode 5 followed the BAU as they looked into the death of FBI Agent Tom Milliken, Luke Alvez's friend who had recently brought a case to the team. He was in the middle of a training exercise with three new agents with the Hostage Response Team when he was shot and killed with a live round. There was not supposed to be any live ammunition in the weapon, so the team needed to figure out what happened.
Trainee Billy Lowell was crushed by what happened, but didn’t know how to put it into words what happened leading up to Milliken’s death. It didn’t help that his other two fellow trainees talked about how he was unable to do the hostage training without panicking somehow. Milliken was aggressive in his approach, but he still wanted to make sure he was making good agents who could do the job properly.
Luke navigates grief in the midst of solving a friend's murder
Despite how distraught Luke was over the loss of his friend, Emily Prentiss agreed to let him run point as long as he worked with JJ Jareau and Tyler Green without issue. However, when questions began to arise about Milliken’s state of mind, Luke’s ire and grief caused him to lose his cool.
At first, evidence began pointing towards him staging his own suicide. Rumors about him being deeply upset and silently crying, in addition to therapy and a possible divorce, led to this theory. However, Milliken’s wife was adamant he would never go that far. His only concern was that he was making the right decisions at work, and sure, he got emotional, but she never once let him think she would not support him and be by his side.
This led Luke to realize someone had likely swapped the ammunition with live rounds without Lowell’s knowledge. JJ and Tyler convinced him to give Lowell a cognitive interview, despite their rough beginning when Luke was in the throes of grief.
After apologizing to Lowell, Luke helped him remember what happened. Lowell talked about how he joined the FBI to make his father proud, but the high-stress environment was a lot for him. He often heard his father’s voice in his head, which led him to panic. Once Luke knew more about Lowell, he started the cognitive interview. Lowell went through the events of that day, including that he had checked his weapon after Milliken gave the trainees dummy bullets.
In the middle of Milliken speaking to him at one point, Lowell got sick, and Milliken’s Chief Officer, Peter O'Connor, came to comfort him. Lowell was horrified when he remembered O’Connor had given him a patdown, and this was when he must have switched the bullets. He tearfully asked Luke how the man could have done that.
JJ convinced Peter O’Connor to help them open Milliken’s safe to retrieve a journal. The actual reason JJ asked for it to be opened was to find Milliken’s ammunition. Ballistics confirmed his own bullets had been used, and O’Connor was the only other person who had access to the safe. O’Connor’s brother, Matthew, had been a trainee of Milliken’s who was dropped and later committed suicide. O’Connor showed no remorse, and JJ told him that Lowell didn’t deserve what he had done to him.
The Fan uses Lance Kingston to communicate with the BAU
The other arc in the episode focused on Tara Lewis and David Rossi as Brian Garrity returned with a similar manifesto that Sicarius had received. Obviously, Garrity wouldn’t have known about the Fan’s manifesto, which meant he was listening to Brian’s podcast.
Elias told the team that in order to draw him out, they would have to allow Brian to do a podcast with Rossi joining him. Rossi was not thrilled about this, but knew they had to do something. They gave Brian a script and opened the podcast to phone calls.
Eventually, they got a phone call from the Fan, but he wasn’t the one speaking. Instead, it was Lance Kingston, who was clearly frightened as he was confined to some sort of chair and forced to type as he asked questions. Tara recognized his voice, and they realized he was a hostage. Things went off the rails quickly as the Fan wanted confirmation that Sicarius was present. In the meantime, Penelope Garcia was trying to triangulate the caller’s location and managed to find out they were at a storage unit Lance owned.
Elias Voit had been brought to the FBI, but Garrity was ordered not to say a word. Throughout the questions, which focused on Sicarius spiders, whether Voit worked with the BAU, and why he let one survivor go, Lance was forced to ask the questions he was given. But then the Fan wanted to know if Sicariosu was present. The team reminded Garrity not to confirm, but when they heard Lance being tortured, he revealed Sicarius was present, causing him to hang up. Garrity asked what happened, and Elias told him he sentenced Lance to death.
This was such a disturbing scene, and while it appears Lance could be dead, we know from spoiler photos for later episodes that Lance will make more appearances. While Connor Storrie may have only appeared late in the episode, the knowledge of his abduction from the last episode kept us anticipating when the BAU would discover he was missing. Considering it had been days since the abduction, it is sad to think he was likely missing and no one noticed, which meant they didn’t know either.
It will be interesting to see if this will have an effect on Lance down the line, especially since from what we know of him, his mom doesn’t return his calls and his actions of stalking his ex-girlfriend caused him to lose his job. What kind of impact will these events have on him if he survives, and will they lead him down a path of destruction or a path towards changing his own behavior?
Criminal Minds: Evolution is streaming on Paramount+ every Thursday.
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