‘Criminal Minds’ Just Returned to Its Best Storyline From Two Seasons Ago

What makes this idea compelling and terrifying is how relevant it is to the modern digital era, feeding into our prejudices against the dangers of the internet. In the 2000s, our fears were creepy old men grooming children behind catfish profiles and the organ black markets in the dark web, and now Criminal Minds has given us a new fear of serial killer chatrooms. While Voit still vets each participant and there are a few steps to being accepted into the group, it sounds a lot more accessible and out of our control than just placing parental safety features onto laptops; it’s as if the psychopaths are hiding in plain sight but now can communicate over long distances. They are now not just individually acting criminals that the BAU can take down one at a time; they have the support of hundreds of like-minded (and some more experienced) people behind them. The network itself is easily the BAU’s greatest adversary thus far, and thus, the best storyline of Season 1.

The Sicarius Network’s Return in ‘Criminal Minds’ Is Even More Terrifying

Even though Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 left the Sicarius network to the wayside, the show subtly brings it back during the Season 3 premiere. The episode follows the BAU hunting down an unsub who drowns his victims as a way to re-live his past trauma, all while meticulously filming each murder. In the closing scenes, Rossi and SSA Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) are talking about the case and about Voit’s unconscious state after being attacked by two prisoners in the Season 2 finale. With Rossi being accused of and investigated for the assault, they are also trying to use their finely honed instincts around Voit to try and figure out what really happened. These instincts also lead to another haunting revelation. The episode’s unsub had uploaded his videos to the same network that Sicarius had used, and their instincts told them that Voit was somehow still involved.

For all of Voit’s wiles, his imprisonment would limit the amount of control he exerted over the network, especially during this case, as he was unconscious for most of it. This means that the network was likely working independently, contrary to what we believed before. It seemed that Voit was the key to making this group run smoothly and efficiently, but it looks like this isn’t the case. We can draw one chilling conclusion from this: the Sicarius serial killers are evolving. It seems they could operate without his explicit and constant guidance, also indicating that the original purpose of the network had succeeded; they are all learning from each other now and have become a completely autonomous body. As such, this storyline’s return in these circumstances ushers in a whole new array of implications and stakes that make us worried about our beloved BAU members.

‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’s Season 3 Makes Voit More Dangerous

The network’s return doesn’t only make the killers seem more dangerous, but Voit as well, despite his current restricted position in the show. When the team catches the episode’s unsub, just before dying by suicide, he mentions a mysterious plan. With the added information about him potentially being part of the Sicarius network, this may suggest that Voit had organized a grander plan before he was arrested. Rossi and Prentiss already suspect that Voit is gearing up for something, since he requested to be in the general population in a prison (which is where he would most likely be attacked for “yard cred”) and due to his foresight for planting a shiv made out of a fan in the laundry room, where he was ultimately assaulted.

Voit’s ominous and larger-than-life presence that he had in Season 1 of Evolution is slowly returning to him. We already knew how intelligent he was, but planning something beyond just a network (which is already a pretty impressive feat) makes him all the more formidable. Voit’s doctors are claiming he has “retrograde amnesia” after the prison attack, but is he faking it? And serial killers are revealing themselves to be part of his network (including most recently Elden Henson‘s Zookeeper in Episode 2.) While Criminal Minds‘ foray into the Gold Star program was interesting, it is exciting that they have returned to one of their most thrilling, relevant, and creepy storylines in Evolution, driving up the tension and anticipation for future episodes.