Criminal Minds Evolution (2×04) Kingdom of the Blind Review

For our review of the last episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution, click here.

When it comes to the new season of Criminal Minds: Evolution, viewers just have to trust the process. As the pieces start to come together, as the story saw the agents of the BAU scattered. Spread thin across several subplots as they all worked towards combating both Gold Star and Voit, the series continues to shed away its procedural origins, developing into a more binge-worthy format. Making some headway, there is clearly a lot left to go this season and more facets of the overarching mystery to be revealed. In terms of this new episode, viewers should expect more of the same but there is a point to it all. Sent on another wild goose chase, cases and unsubs that may have seemed unconnected of course are. However, the root of that connection remains very much a mystery. Meanwhile, Voit may have some humanity after all though with him, one can’t help but suspect Voit of having an ulterior motive at all times.

Featuring another unsub of the week, along with everything else, a woman named Jade (Liana Liberato), lured unsuspecting men and beat them to death before removing their eyes. Rossi and Tara were back on the case, but they were not alone. The Voit hallucinations are back. The real Voit, however, wasn’t ready to give up his family but they have essentially given up on him. Nevertheless, he still cared about them and presented as a possible pressure point. A distraction more than anything else, the hallucinations left Rossi feeling a little rattled (JJ was also rattled by the BAUgate website). Looking into Jade’s past, Rossi and Tara connected her back to past unsub Aiden Keller (Matthew Erick White) and the Utah youth treatment facility from episode 2.

After spending a night in jail, all the charges against Prentiss were dropped thus confirming that the incident that led to her arrest was staged. Whether or not this is connected to Gold Star remains to be seen. Undeterred, the conspiracy theorist kept putting his own life at risk and worrying her by continuing his own so-called investigation into Gold Star.

Garcia convinced Tyler to share his find with the rest of the team. Skirting legal lines, Prentiss needed a win and the contents of the cloned phone gave the team just that, a treasure trove of information that looked to knock the door wide open, expanding on Rossi and Tara’s discovery and connecting it all together. Gold Star was not a person but rather a program conducted by a private contractor that was somehow connected to that Utah facility as the unsubs so far this season were patients there. The first of those was a man named Damien (David Garelik) who was presumably the leader and killed the strike team tasked to eliminate he and his four friends (the whereabouts of the other two are not yet known) to protect them. When it came to contacting Damien, all roads lead to Voit. Now with leverage over him, maybe he’ll be more willing to cooperate? Either way, there is still more to that story and plenty more connections left to make.

Zach Gilford arguably had the best showing here as Voit, playing multiple versions of the character, in real and hallucinatory form. Though rather similar versions, the conniving version tormenting Rossi made for fun exchanges between he and Joe Mantegna (who also directed the episode) and the real version showed some vulnerability whenever his family was involved. Plus, annoyed/worried Prentiss is so relatable as Paget Brewster, who has taken advantage of the free reign that the streaming reboot has allowed her.

Kingdom of the Blind starts to put the pieces together and peeling back the layers of the central mystery but there is still a long way to go.

still courtesy of Paramount+

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.