Warning! Spoilers ahead for Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 1.

This article contains mentions of drowning, murder, and near-death experiences. This article also contains spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 1, "Swimmer's Calculus."

the characters in Criminal Minds: Evolution, led by Emily Prentiss. Season 1 centered on uncovering the identity of Sicarius, the BAU’s most prolific serial killer to date, who created an online network of killers he could activate. The BAU believed Elias Voit is Sicarius, but they could not prove it. At the end of its debut year, Voit was arrested for killing the deputy director of the FBI after taunting him with the phrase “Gold Star.”

The Gold Star Program, an elite group of trained assassins, became the focus of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 (alternatively styled as Criminal Minds season 17). One of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 ending. He was attacked in prison in the season finale, with Voit's fate left on a cliffhanger ahead of season 3.

Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3 Picks Up Six Months After The Season 2 Finale

Rossi Is Under Investigation For The Prison Attack On Voit

Season 3 begins six months after the events surrounding the Stuart House and Project Gold Star came to a head in the Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 finale. The serial killer's fate is revealed: Voit is alive but in a coma with extensive brain damage. However, even unconscious, Voit is still looming over Rossi, who is now under investigation for Voit’s attack on Voit in the minimum-security prison Voit had transferred to.

After the heavy serialization of the end of season 2, the season 3 premiere is a welcome return to the case-of-the-week format. While Prentiss and Rossi are trying to clear Rossi’s name, J.J., Luke Alvez, Penelope Garcia, Tara Lewis, and trainee Tyler Green are focused on catching an unknown subject (unsub) who drowns victims across the Eastern Seaboard. The case seems completely divorced from Sicarius until the unsub’s unusual dying declaration makes Prentiss wonder if it’s not part of a larger plan.

Voit’s status is confirmed as comatose but alive, but the very end of the episode shows him waking up and attacking a nurse.

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 1 wraps up two of the threads it set up in the season 2 finale, at least for now, but also opens up potential storylines for the rest of the year. Voit’s status is confirmed as comatose but alive, but the very end of the episode shows him waking up and attacking a nurse. In the Evolution season 2 finale, Tyler Green applies to the FBI, and he begins the season 3 premiere as an official trainee awaiting his assignment.

Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, Episode 1 Unsub & Case Explained

The BAU Tracks An Unsub Who Drowns His Victims & Uses The Sea As A Forensic Countermeasure

Prentiss and the BAU are investigating a series of drownings. JJ and Luke test Tyler as a trainee, questioning him about whether the stab wounds to the chest are a signature, and he responds they are a forensic countermeasure meant to fill the lungs with water, so the bodies will sink instead of float and marine life will degrade evidence. However, the teeth of the first five victims show they were drowned in a chlorine pool, not the ocean. Meanwhile, Garcia links the victims through a beach house rental website.

At the beach, a family celebrates what seems to be a picture-perfect 50th birthday, with the teenage daughter even gifting her father an engraved corkscrew. The unsub knocks all three out with an aerosolized spray, and the family of three wake up at his home with the unsub ordering them to get into the pool. When the father refuses, the unsub shoots him. The daughter becomes hysterical, but the mother becomes compliant and strategic, coaching her daughter to conserve her energy.

Back at the Behavioral Analysis Unit headquarters, Garcia identifies the first two victims, both from Chesapeake, Virginia. Searching for a custom pool at least seven feet deep compounded with a water-based trauma, they discover the identity of the unsub: Franklin Fowler. Franklin’s father was an abusive, drunken lifeguard who made Franklin take his swimming test over and over despite Franklin’s asthma. When he was 10 years old, his parents and older sister were found drowned in their pool in Chesapeake, and Franklin was suspected but never convicted.

At Franklin’s pool, he grows bored watching mother Kristen and daughter Vivienne float, so he closes his airtight pool cover, sadistically throwing the father’s dead body in as well. Kristen retrieves the engraved corkscrew from her husband’s pocket, and she and Vivienne try to wedge it into the cover to stay afloat, but Franklin shoots her in the shoulder, just as the BAU shows up.

Franklin smashes the pool cover opener and says cryptically “Maybe this was the plan all along” before shooting himself in the head. Tyler, not allowed to carry a gun as a trainee, luckily has a knife on him and cuts open the pool cover just in time. Kristen has a beautiful moment where she is swimming to meet her husband, then jerked away as she is rescued and resuscitated.

Why Rossi Is Being Interrogated By Internal Affairs About Voit's Stabbing

Rossi's Prediction Is Now Perceived As A Threat Against Voit

BAU's most veteran member spent much of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2 being haunted by hallucinations of Voit, like Rossi’s previous visions of Tommy Yates, even though Voit was already imprisoned. Rossi is relieved to tell Emily that his mind has been free of Voit ever since he fell into a coma, but the criminal is still looming over him even from his comatose state.

Voit made a deal to be transferred to a minimum security prison and requested to be in gen pop rather than isolation. Rossi visited Voit in prison before the transfer and reminded him of all the serial killers who were targeted in jail, including Jeffrey Dahmer, for street cred inside the prison. Now that Sicarius was attacked in exactly the manner that he predicted, Rossi is under investigation as potentially being behind Voit’s attack by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) basically the FBI’s version of Internal Affairs.

In Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2, Rossi had romantic tension with Dr. Jill Gideon, another founding member of the BAU and Jason Gideon's ex-wife, played by Felicity Huffman. It is unknown whether Jill will be returning.

Prentiss and Rossi profile the crime scene photos to find new evidence. Because the stab wounds on Voit’s victims are so much deeper than his own, they speculate he had a weapon hidden in the laundry room. Rossi successfully finds the knife Voit fashioned from a fan blade, hidden under the washing machine. This buys him some leeway with OPR, but questions remain about who leaked Voit's identity and whether the two nonviolent offenders were "enticed" into attacking him.

Tyler Is Set To Leave The BAU For His Field Work (But Will He?)

Actor Ryan-James Hatanaka Is Credited As a Main Cast Member For Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3

Tyler Green, one of the most divisive characters in Criminal Minds: Evolution, spent season 2 earning back Garcia’s trust after their romantic entanglement and his betrayal in season 1. Tyler had spent a decade hunting Sicarius, using his military training to infiltrate the online network in order to find the man who killed his sister. After consulting with the BAU on the Gold Star case in season 2, Tyler applied to be an FBI agent in the finale.

In the Evolution season 3 premiere, Tyler is a trainee agent awaiting his first assignment. He hopes to stay in D.C., but by the end of the episode, Tyler is assigned to Mobile, Alabama. The rest of the team is very jovial in explaining it will be ten years before he can work his way back to the BAU. While it seems like Tyler is leaving the BAU, actor Ryan-James Hatanaka is credited as a main cast member for Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3.

Because Tyler did not get a heartfelt farewell, and because he is so intimately familiar with Sicarius, I suspect Tyler will be back this season, and perhaps as soon as the next episode, given what happens with Voit. With Prentiss’s speculation that the drowning unsub might be part of Sicarius’ network based on ing videos to the same CODEX, it seems unlikely Tyler is gone for good.

Why Penelope Garcia Has Empathy For Voit

Garcia Believes There Is Something Redeeming Inside Voit

Penelope Garcia has always been the unexpected star of Criminal Minds: Evolution — something that started in the original show. Reluctantly brought back to help find Sicarius in season 1, she quickly brought her signature quirkiness and brightness to the BAU. Garcia had a rocky romance with Tyler Green, who betrayed her trust to hunt Voit in person in season 1. Penelope had little with Voit, but she did give him a chilling if awkward stare-down when he taunted Tyler in season 2.

Prentiss is surprised and concerned to realize Garcia has been sitting bedside in Voit’s hospital room. Penelope tells Luke that she saw Voit’s soul, or at least “an ember of something” — when she stared into his eyes. Luke is worried about her attachment to Voit, but Garcia says she’s hoping to see something worth redeeming. Given Voit’s first actions when he awakens at the end of the episode, hopefully Garcia sees how wrong she is about one of the most disturbing unsubs in Criminal Minds.

Is Voit Really Brain Damaged In Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3?

Voit Has Brain Trauma Going Back Decades

According to the of his attack, Voit was shallowly stabbed three times, somehow got the jump on his attackers and killed them, then collapsed and has not regained consciousness since. Rossi proved Voit had a weapon hidden behind cleaning products, but scans show that Voit has brain damage that far preceded the attack. Voit has complex cerebral scarring, trauma that goes back decades. The doctors said his brain resembles that of a football linebacker’s. Voit grew up with his abusive uncle, so it’s plausible he had several undiagnosed concussions.

While Voit definitely has brain damage, it is unclear if that might make him not legally liable. Voit has cleverly exploited loopholes before, so he will certainly use any medical data to his benefit. Because he is comatose, only one of Voit’s wrists are handcuffed to the bed. In the premiere’s closing, we see his free arm snap up to strangle the nurse checking him. We’ll see how Voit’s murderous impulses and brain injury impact Garcia’s opinion of him and the deal he made with the FBI over the rest of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3.

New episodes of Criminal Minds: Evolution premiere 12:00 a.m. PT (3:00 a.m. ET) on Paramount+.New episodes will be released weekly Thursdays throughout the season.The season will consist of 10 episodes.

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