Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 episode 5 recap: Voit is one step ahead

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2, episode 5, "Conspiracy vs. Theory," focused on the BAU’s attempts to find Damien through Voit. Of course, like all best laid plans, they didn’t go very smoothly. Plus, Emily faced issues at work as she continued to face a wall in the form of Brian Garrity.

So far, we’re still learning about the players within Gold Star and how Elias is connected to them. Damien and Jade are in the wind, but Elias feels he can communicate with Damien by getting a message through. In a scene with Damien and Jade, we heard the names Peter and Dane, who are likely the last two remaining members of Gold Star.

Unfortunately, they're missing, so we don’t know how to find them. In the meantime, once Elias made contact with Voit, they set up a meeting at a park bench. But then Alvez realized that Voit had sent a secret message in Morse code mentioning “North Star.”

Elias claimed the message meant nothing, but the team wasn’t buying it. He continued to taunt them, at one point bringing up a possible triangle between Penelope, Luke, and Tyler. The team ignored him, though, as Dave put the attention on himself.

Dave had tried to avoid talking to Voit but once they were in the air to meet with Damien, he listened as Elias tried to say he was sorry for locking Dave in his underground bunker. He may not have meant it and was just getting a rise out of Dave.

At the meeting spot, it became clear things are not right as a van barreled into the park covered in Kevlar. The FBI eventually stopped the van, finding the driver to be someone unrelated to the investigation. Damien and Jade had abducted him and put a bomb on him in return for his cooperation.

What we know about Gold Star on Criminal Minds: Evolution

While attempting to get the bomb off of the driver, Elias talked to Jade when she called on the phone attached to the bomb. Elias tried to get Jade to see that she had to protect herself, but this just riled her up and caused her to attempt to blow up the bomb. Luckily, Penelope jammed the signal just in time.

After Jade escaped and Elias was placed in the prison transport van, we saw Damien impersonating a police officer so he could get in the van and talk to Voit. What happened between them is unknown as Elias was later seen back in prison.

Whether or not the team can find Damien anytime soon, we do know a bit about his background. He had been selected to do secret missions for a military company. The missions mirrored the trauma Damian suffered at Stuart House, so this likely has continued to fuel his anger and his mindset about not trusting the government.

Hopefully once they can figure out who is behind the trauma that created the members of Gold Star, the team can bring everyone involved to justice.

As for Emily, she tried to talk to Brian and get information from him. However, he wouldn’t budge, despite Emily’s pleas. He did give her one piece of information. The people who had him try to get Emily in trouble wanted her to know “Teresa is in trouble.”

Right after we saw Brian leave, Tyler was seen making a phone call. Is he connected to this mysterious Teresa? If he is, then he should communicate with the team so that they can not only trust him, but so Penelope can see that he is trying to write his wrongs. 

With Elias doing things under the BAU’s nose, especially with Emily taking time off work while Rossi takes over, it looks like things for the agents are going to get tougher than ever.

With Voit and Damian likely working together to outsmart the team, we can only hope they figure it out quickly. How will things continue to play out as the team tries to find Gold Star and stay several steps ahead of Voit?

There is a lot of upheaval occuring within and outside of the BAU. But hopefully the team will be able to come together and figure out how to stop Voit before he reaches his goal of escaping prison.

Criminal Minds: Evolution streams Thursdays on Paramount+.