Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 episode 2 recap: "Contagion"

Criminal Minds: Evolution started strong with its first episode back episode back, as well as episode 2. In, “Contagion,” the team was separated doing different things that could be connected to Gold Star. But how long until cracks start to show?

To help the BAU, Tyler had located a facility that could be connected to the bank that was used by the strike team that was killed. So he was eventually allowed to do a sting operation, but only with Tara along for the ride.

Things only got more tense when Rebecca arrived, after the DOJ asked to make sure everything was on the up and up. Rebecca and Tara butted heads, with Tyler excused himself to go get food as the former couple began arguing. Eventually, they did talk things out. Rebecca informed Tara she was kept on the outside of the Gold Star investigation, so she had no way of knowing Bailey would be killed. 

Tara eventually admitted her attitude was a cover for her worry that Rebecca would be killed for what she knew. Neither of them realized that Tyler, who had feigned food poisoning, was not in the restroom. He had gone into the facility himself to find information, which is technically illegal since he didn’t have a warrant.

The only things he found were passports for a man named Sebastian Gasper. He eventually returned to the car without revealing what he found. But since he didn’t inform them of what he did, can he actually be trusted?

What did Elias Voit do to affect Luke Alvez?

As for Emily and David, they went to Utah to investigate a murder that had similarities to Gold Star. However, David had a hard time believing the two were connected. The victims, Caroline and Timothy Leo, had no connection to the strike team.

When a woman named Nancy was abducted, and she had a similar career path as Tim Leo, they discovered a facility that someone tried to scrub from the Internet. It was supposed to be a behavioral modification program centered on helping students, but it was actually hiding abuse. One of the children affected, Aiden Keller, turned out to be their killer.

During the investigation, Emily was determined to believe it was Gold Star, mainly because of the eyes being gouged out. However, David was unconvinced and it would turn out that he was right.

Aiden was caught, but Penelope informed them that he had just been released from custody after undergoing treatment for his mental health. So he was not related to Gold Star at all. This episode showed how dangerous it could be to let one case affect you while attempting to solve another.

So where did this leave JJ and Luke during the episode? They attempted to use their plan to get Elias to reveal his connection to Gold Star. Unfortunately for them, he didn’t play JJ’s game and he made it so that JJ couldn’t talk to him anymore.

Luke went into try to play him as well, but Elias managed to turn things around on him as well. He whispered something to Luke that caused the agent to flip out, telling him that whatever he said was a lie. But Elias refused to tell JJ what he said. So all we know is now, potentially, Luke may be barred from talking to Elias.

It seems like Elias is going to try and bait the team to make the director assign another unit to his case. But will he continue to be one step ahead of them? Only time will tell. We’ll find out more when a new episode airs on Thursday, June 13. For a recap of episode 1, click here.