Criminal Minds: Evolution – Season 2 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Kingdom of The Blind

Episode 4 of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 takes us to Jackpot, NV. A woman plays the perfect damsel in distress role, making it look like her car broke down. A local sheriff stops to help her, making a sarcastic comment about how good girls like her shouldn’t be stranded in the middle of nowhere at night. Unfortunately, he spoke too soon because the girl butchers him to death and takes his badge. So much for being a good samaritan!

Elsewhere, Emily tries to explain she is being framed, but the responding officers insist on taking her downtown. Sadly, she ends up spending the night in jail and calls Rossi to bail her the next morning. Rossi is still having hallucinations of Voit and is not in a good place. However, he is keeping his hallucinations a secret from the team. He picks up Emily, and they plan how to get to Braian and find out what is going on. 

At Garcia’s house, Tyler ignores her multiple requests to leave. Garcia makes it clear that he needs to do better and tells Emily what he did and how he got the cloned phone. She refuses to help him, and after seeing how uncomfortable she is, he apologises and leaves.

The following day, Emily gets the whole team to look into Brian and his possible location. Unfortunately, the team starts to wonder if Voit is right and Goldstar is about conspiracy theories. Emily flies off the handle, saying they won’t use Voit’s words to create their profile. She quickly apologises for her reaction and asks the team to look into all possibilities. After the meeting, JJ asks to speak privately to Emily, but Tyler interrupts them.

He finally tells Emily about the cloned phone and asking for Garcia’s help. Emily asks Garcia to decrypt the phone, and the IT guru asks Tyler to help. Together, they decrypt the phone, and Tyler sincerely apologises for making her uncomfortable the other night. He says she is willing to do better, and Garcia explains how he can make amends.

As for JJ and Luke, they talk with Casey over her demands. Casey wants to be immediately placed into witness protection and to speak to Voit first before he speaks to the girls. The BAU agree to her demands and let her talk to talk with Voit first. She is flabbergasted that Voit is still in denial about the emotional and mental toll his actions have caused on their daughters. In anger, she tells him about Hayley’s self-harm ritual and asks him to say goodbye to the girls.

This gets Voit’s attention, and he starts to worry whether Hayley is a serial killer like him or just overwhelmed. He agrees to say goodbye to the girls on the condition that he gets to hug them one last time. The team weighs the pros and cons and decides to give in to Voit’s request with caution. 

At the same time, the team is informed of the ongoing killings involving different sheriffs. The young lady has struck again, killing another sheriff and taking their badges. However, what catches BAU’s attention is the enucleation of both victims. 

Elsewhere, the unsubs tattoos her victims’ eyes on her hand while listening to news about her recent killings. In the meantime, Rossi and Tara narrow down that the unsub is female and is on a revenge path. Rossi remains distracted by his hallucinations of Voit.

We circle back to Voit, meeting the girls and the youngest one is happy to see him, but her dad’s charms do not easily fool Hayley. She asks him to read a letter admitting he is a serial killer and tries to stab him with a weapon.

Everyone is shocked, and the officers quickly take charge of the situation. After things calm down, Luke mocks Voit saying that Hayley is skilled like him since she even managed to sneak in a weapon. Out of concern, Voit asks Luke to help Hayley before it is too late. He promises to help the FBI if they help his daughter. However, he refuses to admit he is Sycarius. 

On the other hand, Hayley tells JJ that she wanted to kill Voit because of how much he hurt them. Voit is not the only one concerned, Casey is worried too, and JJ suggests a programme that helps youths like Hayley and encourages Casey that Hayley is going to be okay. 

As the day goes by, Emily gets a call from Brian. He explains he was blackmailed into setting her up but doesn’t say by who. Apparently, he is looking into it and thinks it involves Goldstar. He believes he is close to finding out the truth.

Emily tries to dissuade him from investigating further, but he hangs up before she can warn him again. Emily starts to question if Goldstar is really a conspiracy theorist and confides in JJ. She also asks JJ about what she wanted to talk about but the latter says it is no longer important. 

At Jackpot, Rossi and Tara put the pieces of the case after finding a connection between the victims. It turns out both sheriffs used to work at Stuart’s house. Once again, they realise the cases are interlinked, and Voit might be right. They revisit Stuart House to look for more leads.

Meanwhile, the unsub moves to kidnap her father and make him pay. However, he is already aware she is coming for him and has a plan. On their way, they get a call from Salt Lake police informing them about a possible kidnapping fitting their unsub. Tara is sure the woman in question is their unsub since she spent time at the Stuart House. They arrive to find the man killed and his daughter gone.

By now, they are sure his daughter is the unsub and have a BOLO out for her. Given that she subdued her dad and killed him for admitting her into behavioural rehab and killing her mother, Tara is sure the unsub has completed her revenge. They need to find her before she goes A-wall. The unsub, Jade, meets with a young man, Damien, who is likely to be Goldstar. Together, they make plans for their next step.

After decrypting the cloned phone, Garcia realises that the strike team each had a specific target from Stuart House to kill. However, Damien, AKA Goldstar, took out the strike team. Actually, Goldstar is a program with five members, hence the five golden star signature. Emily believes that the killers are trauma-bonded from their days at the Stuart House.

Tyler reveals that his former boss revealed that Goldstar is the work of a private contractor, not a rogue government operation. The team needs to figure out who founded and funded the programme. They need to find out who the other targets of the programme are and figure out if the unsubs are meeting after completing their revenge.

Emily suggests they lure Danien, the leader, through Voit and arrest him. Emily brings the offer to Voit. She agrees to help Hayley get into the Safeguard programme, which will help her deal with the trauma. Voit agrees to help the BAU, but only if they take him to Quantico and treat him like a profiler. The episode ends with Voit being transferred to Quantico.

The Episode Review

What an intriguing twist as the BAU gets close to Goldstar. So Goldstar is a sort of assassin programme with a five-member strike team. Damien, who we initially assumed was Goldstar, took out the strike team to save his friends, but so far, we still don’t know two of the intended targets. Even though Emily is against it, they will have to rely on Voit to catch Damien. 

This makes us wonder if Voit knew this all along and was bidding his time. However, like Emily, we also have reservations about whether Voit will help without any further ulterior motives. It is also interesting to see how Voit’s weakness is still his family. The BAU will need to learn how to use this to their advantage perfectly.