Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 episode 8 recap: How is Jill connected to Stuart House?

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 episode 8, "North Star," brought us even closer to figuring out the Gold Star mystery. We learned where it came from and how Jill Gideon was involved in its creation. 

When Jill decided to implement the white paper, it wasn’t for the purpose that it's being used for now. She only wanted to see if it would work to identify kids that were susceptible to being put into violent situations through their upbringing and how to help them. However, a shell corporation with multiple investors took over so her part in the project dwindled.

What Jill didn’t know at the time was that the psychologists she worked with at Stuart House, including Dr. Hank Dosela, were using the project for other purposes. Her intentions were to help the kids, but it was twisted into something diabolical.

She gave the team a list of the psychologists she worked with, however, when JJ and Luke went to find Dr. Dosela, they found his body instead. Garcia also found out that the other doctors involved had died in what appeared to be accidents or suicides. This meant that Jill was in danger herself.

Along with Rossi, who told Prentiss that Jill lied to her about their relationship, Jill went back to her home so they could learn find more information on the Gold Star kids together. After learning more about Damien’s foster life, they discovered his foster father, Brooks Larson, died eight years ago.

In an effort to get herself alone, Jill used an emotional conversation with Rossi to kiss him, thus making him leave. But once the BAU figured out Damien’s full name and found his photo, it was off to the races to find him.

Just as Rossi realized Jill used herself as a target, she took Damien back to Gideon’s cabin, which was covered in plastic due to her son’s plans to remodel it. Jill managed to get through to Damien, convincing him that the lies he heard were not real. Unfortunately, just as he was ready to turn himself in to the BAU, a shot rang out from a rifle that was rigged to go off. 

Damien was shot killed and Jill blamed herself for what happened. Jade, having been the one to use the weapon while hiding, ran away before anyone could catch her.

Now that it's just Jade on her own, another question the BAU needs to answer is where the other two members of Gold Star are. The focus so far this season has just been on Jade and Damien. So what happened to the other two and will they be caught with only two episodes left?

As for Voit, he didn’t make an appearance in the episode, but his lawyer did. The case he gave his lawyer, Vincent, held a GPS tracker and a lock box. According to Vincent, his client, aka Voit, wanted Damien and Jade to be able to have tools at their disposal to learn more about North Star and find the truth.

Back at the BAU, Rebecca informed Tara that there was a hack into the Marshal’s database and they felt it could involve Voit trying to find out where his family was. The only person he met with was his lawyer, so Rebecca reluctantly worked with Tyler to find out more about his discussions with Voit.

They found information that looked like Vincent had communicated with Voit over his network, where Vincent had dark fantasies he hadn’t acted on. So it is likely that Voit has him doing his dirty work to keep him in line. However, Vincent doesn’t confirm nor deny what they discovered.

Voit may be using his lawyer to bait Gold Star into being located so he can locate them before the BAU. But now that it is only Jade and the other two, who are still unaccounted for, exactly what is Voit aiming for? With only two episodes left, we’re looking forward to figuring out whether or not the BAU will be able to prevent Voit from succeeding in his mind games.

New episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution are available Thursdays on Paramount+.