'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Boss Unpacks That Shocking Voit Finale Cliffhanger (Exclusive)

'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Boss Unpacks That Shocking Voit Finale Cliffhanger (Exclusive) originally appeared on Parade.

It seemed that the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI had the Sicarius case wrapped up in a beautiful bow, the new Voit (Zach Gilford) with a conscience had confessed his crimes and was off to a supermax prison. Just then, the final scene of Season 18 of Criminal Minds: Evolution leaves viewers with a doozy of a cliffhanger.

Voit is on the prison bus with several other inmates when he has either a hallucination or a fantasy of killing the man sitting closest to him after being recognized as Sicarius. It’s unclear if that means Voit has reverted to his previous condition as a psychopath and the serial killer is once again living in him.

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“It’s meant to make us wonder if Sicarius is back,” showrunner Erica Messer tells Parade in an exclusive interview. “I think one of the things that really excited us about exploring this side of Voit was to give Zach that challenge of taking a character who was pretty much irredeemable and making us feel for him – doing that through Aimee Garcia’s character and through Garcia doing aromatherapy with him in this season. He feels like a different person, but he has this crazy set of skills, which could kill somebody – any way you could imagine he can do it."

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What that means for Season 19, which is currently filming, remains to be seen. Will Sicarius once again scratch the itch of being a killer? Or will he be able to quiet the beast that’s in there because he now has a conscience?

In our chat with Messer, she also unpacked the rest of what happened in Season 18 of Criminal Minds: Evolution and teased a little of what’s to come in Season 19.

Zach Gilford Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+

When you were creating this season, what kind of research did you do to see if Voit's cure is medically possible? Are there case studies where that’s happened?Not many with killers. Although, there were a couple that we could research. Then playing that out legally: Can that person be charged with a crime that they don’t remember committing if we could prove without a shadow of a doubt that their brain is not firing in those places, or is now firing in those places? So, science backing us up. It became more of the legal issue of things that we were seeing. But, yeah, we found a couple of cases where they didn’t remember carrying out the horrific things that, without a doubt, they did.

Related:Everything We Know About Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 19 So Far — Including That Shocking Cliffhanger

Voit was more sympathetic this season through Dr. Ochoa. But, also, in the end, both JJ (A.J. Cook) and Emily (Paget Brewster) felt sorry for him. But what about Rossi’s [Joe Mantegna] feeling? He really had the strongest reaction to this man who buried him alive.I think a lot of it goes back to when Voit first started talking in Episode 2 and called Rossi "dad." That was drawn from a friend of mine who had been in a horrible accident, and when he came out of his coma, he called everyone "mom." So, I know that kind of thing happens. I said it would be incredible if he sees Rossi and calls him dad, and then that takes Rossi out because it’s like, "What the hell’s happening?" But medically, that kind of thing does happen where you say that word.It was really in Episode 3 when Voit gets those memories back of"‘I’m married, I have two kids, and what have I done that I can’t see my family?" When he breaks down and Rossi takes his head and rubs his back, as a dad would for anybody, I think it both enraged Rossi that he had to do that because he, himself, is struggling with "I hate this guy so how am I comforting him?" I think that started the journey onward where he doesn’t like working with him.

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Even still in Season 19, he’s like, "If I never have to deal with that guy again, I’ll be happy." But it’s all evolved. Our heroes are changing because they’re dealing with things they’ve never had to deal with. I think Rossi surprised himself in [like], "This guy’s not as disturbing to me as he once was. Because now, I’m seeing a regular guy side of him. I see someone with remorse, and I didn’t see that for years. And now that I do, I feel differently about him."

Joe MantegnaPhoto Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+

Related:Criminal Minds Star Talks Whether Voit’s Amnesia is Real (Exclusive)

We met The Disciple (Jordana Spiro) and found out that she has a very strong connection to Voit that even he was not aware of. Yet does she measure up to Sicarius? He found fault with the way she was handling his network.We had a real fun time playing with this character throughout. Who in the world did he have as his second in command when he had the network? Clearly, that person took over, but they’re not doing it the smart way. The smart way is to stay in the shadows. But then to realize that part of The Disciple’s plan was to get his attention, to try to reawaken the Sicarius killer. In that way, it’s like each of them had their own evil plan, if you will. His was a means to an end to have a network of killers, because he can’t go out himself and kill. And then hers was, "Let me reactivate these people in the name of Sicarius so that we can honor him and get him back into it again."

Look, he’s the big bad so he has to be smarter at the end of the day. But I still think she almost succeeded. She had him kill again. He went from not killing to killing to save Ochoa. So, she kind of won that battle, but she wasn’t going to be able to get him to come all the way back to the dark side.

Kirsten Vangsness as Penelope Garcia in Criminal Minds: Evolution, season 18 streaming on Paramount+, 2025. Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+Photo Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+

One of the things that Voit was able to make The Disciple do was to expose the whole network to Garcia. Is that what Season 19 is about? Is the BAU going after the rest of the network?Between Seasons 18 and 19, we’ve stopped everybody. So, Season 19 really gets to start fresh. A year has passed story-wise, and the network is done. But there’s still reason to have Elias Voit around.

Related:A.J. Cook Opens Up About JJ’s Loss onCriminal Minds: EvolutionAnd What’s Next With Her and Voit (Exclusive)

What’s the plan, then, for Season 19? We have the time jump, so the team has had some rest and they’re back up to speed. What’s going on with them?A lot of healing has happened in this year away. I think both JJ’s loss and Tara’s (Aisha Tyler) conversation with her mom that she never got to have while her mom was alive both really inform those characters to live in the moment, enjoy life, and know that you can’t really ever truly prepare for anything, you just have to be happy for the day that’s ahead of you.

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That said, for JJ anyway, she’s got a new chapter ahead. She’s preparing for Henry to go away to college, and that’ll be a new journey for her. Garcia is having some fun in the dating world; let’s leave it at that. Alvez has a lot going on this year. I feel as far as emotional journeys, if last season was JJ and Tara, this year it’s Alvez. He has a lot going on that we’ll allude to in the first episode, but it really comes into light Episode 2 and onward.

Does he still have his dog, Roxy?It’s funny you should ask, Paulette. You’ll have to watch!

So, the team has had a year to readjust and rest and get back up to speed. Voit has confessed to those crimes, and he’s been sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty. One of the things that the BAU does in real life is interview serial killers. So, they’re still in his orbit by interviewing him quite a bit.

The side effect of him now not being in the darkness anymore [is that] he’s nobody’s secret anymore. He’s out there in the world. Everybody knows he’s killed 63 people and he’s a well-known name. He’s like a Ted Bundy. You’ve got somebody who doesn’t want to be known for the darkness that they brought into the world, so he’s got a celebrity about him now. That has its own side effects. So, that’s what we get to explore in Season 19.

Related:Criminal MindsStar Kirsten Vangsness Talks Voit’s Questionable Amensia and Garcia’s ‘Terrible Boundaries’ (Exclusive)

RJ HatanakaPhoto Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+

The whole team is staying together, which is great. With Tyler (RJ Hatanaka), though, they had to make an exception for him because he doesn’t really have the experience or the time that he’s supposed to have. Why are you keeping Tyler?Once you get in with the BAU, if you can hang with them and you’re additive to their process, they’re not going to get rid of you. They know him, they like him. Voit is still in their orbit. Even though it’s not about stopping the network, he is still with us. It’s for that reason. But then, also, you’re really going to get to see the growth of Tyler this season. Being aware of "I don’t have the experience you all have. So I’m looking at a case and I’m not seeing that the end of it could even be a possibility, because my own bias won’t let me consider that." So, Rossi takes him under his wing. Rossi and Prentiss both are like, “Alright, kid, here’s the deal.” It’s nice to have that relationship again with a team that’s worked together for so long that everybody’s outgrown needing to have that mentor-mentee. It’s sort of a welcome relationship to have him be that guy.

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Will we have one big bad for next season, like a new Sicarius? Or will we be doing cases of the week?We’re doing both. This will feel a little more like this season, where we’re stopping a bad guy every week – I shouldn’t say stopping, we’re not always stopping them. We’re investigating a bad guy every episode. And then in addition, there’s another threat out there. Initially, only the audience knows that for the first couple of episodes, and then it becomes clear to the team by the third episode that there’s somebody else out there.

I like it when we get satisfaction more often than, "Yes, they got them."Exactly. I think it was hard during the Gold Star season because it was always to be continued. He was our case of the week and our serialized. So, you didn’t feel that satisfaction until that season was done. This you’ll feel the familiarity of the old show.

A.J. Cook and Matthew Gray GublerPhoto Credit: Michael Yarish/Paramount+

We had Matthew Gray Gubler back this season, which was great. Might anybody else be returning? I had hoped Shemar Moore but then S.W.A.T. was picked up. What can you tell us about possible returning favorites from the original show?We had a writers’ room going at the beginning of 2025, and we’re halfway through production now on Season 19. Nobody could commit to what they’re doing in the summer and if they can be on the show. I would say in Season 19, never say never. But right now, it was nothing that we could count on or plan for. Where last year pretty early on I was, “We’re going to do this funeral episode, Joe’s directing it, and the stars aligned that Matthew was going to be here in September to do it.”

Everybody else seems to be busy on their own projects, and we have such a short window. With ten episodes, we’re only shooting 20 weeks out of the year now, not 42 or whatever it used to be. It’s just harder to find that. Hopefully, we have more seasons that we get to explore that kind of storytelling.

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The entire Season 18 of Criminal Minds: Evolution is streaming on Paramount+.

Next,Paget Brewster Talks the Two Returns You Won’t Want to Misson Criminal Minds: Evolution(Exclusive)

'Criminal Minds: Evolution' Boss Unpacks That Shocking Voit Finale Cliffhanger (Exclusive) first appeared on Parade on Jul 10, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 10, 2025, where it first appeared.