“Some of the Best Dialogue I’ve Ever Had the Honor of Saying”: ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Star Teases a Pivotal Moment for Prentiss and Tyler in Season 3
As Criminal Minds: Evolution returns for Season 3 later in the week on May 8, the BAU continues to deal with some of the most depraved offenders ever known to man. Most of the team members have witnessed a lot of unsubs, but Tyler Green (RJ Hatanaka) is relatively new, and he’s learning as he goes. “People think this job is about staring down evil, but it’s not. . . . . It’s about loss,” Prentiss (Paget Brewster) tells Tyler in the season’s trailer. Brewster said this line “is some of the best dialogue I’ve ever had the honor of saying onscreen. It is so well written,” when previewing the season to TV Insider, and how Tyler settles in with the team. “I never remember lines [after filming],” she said, but the scene, written by Jayne Archer, stuck out because it sums up what the BAU does in a really complex manner. She explained:
“The speech is about you’re now a member of this team and you beat out a lot of hotshots for it because their mistake is thinking that this job is about staring down evil, but it’s not. It’s about loss. And Tyler’s character has suffered the loss of his sister, and that’s how he became involved in the case. He was going to take out Voit [Zach Gilford] himself in Season 1 on Paramount+. And so the idea that you have to comprehend what’s at stake if you’re dealing with a serial killer. They have a loss, but they’re creating loss. And if you can’t understand what the victims need, what the families need, you can’t just be a hotshot with a gun.”
The scene challenges Tyler’s notions about the BAU, extending the same challenge to the viewer. “It’s not just being a tough guy. It’s a psychological study of humanity that requires humanity, not tough guy guns, not, oh, she’s a badass bitch,” Brewster added, continuing, “It’s really specifically with profilers getting inside the mind of the person to stop them from hurting more people. It’s that simple, but it’s the most complex thing to explain and I love that scene. I can’t wait [for people to see it].”
What Is ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 3 About?
The upcoming season finds the BAU fighting another threat connected to their new nemesis, Elias Voit. Season 3 “picks up six months after prisoners attack the notorious Sicarius Killer, Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), leading his restless followers on the dark web to begin wreaking havoc all over the country. In order to stop this nefarious group from killing more innocents, the BAU is forced to work alongside an increasingly unpredictable Voit who has his own agenda,” teases the season’s official logline. Voit is “not done. I feel like, at the end of every season, he just finds a new way to cause trouble,” showrunner Erica Messer told Collider, teasing some more mind games and chaos from the villain who has proven himself a formidable opponent for the BAU.
