Warning: SPOILERS for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, Episode 2 Review, "The Zookeeper."

This article discusses suicide, death, and horrific crimes like abduction, mutilation, and psychological torture.

end of Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2, the serial killer was revealed to be in a medically-induced coma, only for him to rise from the dead in the closing moments of “Swimmer’s Calculus.”

As for the cast of Criminal Minds: Evolution, the procedural is working with the same players as usual: Paget Brewster’s Emily Prentiss, Joe Mantegna’s David Rossi, A.J. Cook’s Jennifer “JJ” Jareau, Kirsten Vangsness’ Penelope Garcia, Adam Rodriguez’s Luke Alvez, Aisha Tyler’s Tara Lewis, and Ryan-James Hatanaka’s Tyler Green. Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 2 manages to balance the case with personal touches from the ensemble cast, setting it apart from the season premiere with a refreshing authenticity. While there were still a few hallmark twists, this episode felt purposeful, raising the bar substantially.

The Of The BAU Prove They Have Personal Lives Outside Of Work

Criminal Minds: Evolution Checks In On Tara's Relationship And JJ's Family

While Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 1 hinted at two storylines — Tara’s relationship with Rebecca Wilson (Nicole Pacent) and the birthday party for JJ’s son — “The Zookeeper” goes a step further and follows the agents home. The episode opens with an intimate scene between Tara and Rebecca, tastefully shot if not a tad long. The post-coitus discussion takes a jolting turn when Rebecca mentions Tara’s issues with emotional intimacy, claiming her defensive nature leads her to adopt the “you can’t fire me, I quit” mentality. Tara begins to deny her claim, only for an incoming text to distract them.

Meanwhile, JJ begins to feel overwhelmed at the idea of planning her son’s birthday party, especially with her husband, Will LaMontagne (Josh Stewart), who's apparently too busy to contribute. Penelope, in true Penelope fashion, wants to help in any way possible — namely, creating an ornately-decorated birthday cake — and JJ accepts her help before the same unknown message cuts their conversation short.

Catching up with the cast before the killer struck was a welcome change of pace. The Criminal Minds’ BAU are more than FBI agents. The series may follow serial killers and disturbing cases, but humanity has always been at the heart of the show.

Voit Awakening From His Coma Comes With Another Curve-Ball

The Serial Killer Presents With Retrograde Amnesia

The text that was heard around the world turns out to be the notification that — per the ending of Criminal MInds: Evolution season 3, episode 1 — Voit woke up from his coma. The kicker is that Voit doesn’t anything, including his own name. Naturally, the BAU all assume he’s lying and manipulating everyone to try and evade the law; Tara even mentions a “comionate release” that could be granted, letting Voit essentially walk free. Yet, as the episode progresses, it becomes clear that Voit’s retrograde amnesia is real.

The only person Voit recognizes is Rossi, who he believes to be his father. Rossi, of course, wants nothing to do with him, even if recovering his lost memories could be vital to stopping the killers that are still active and presumably carrying out old orders from Sicarius. After Tara and Luke discover the area of Voit’s brain that produces empathy is functioning — meaning that Voit isn’t a psychopath (at least not anymore) — Rossi visits his “son” in the hospital and starts to rough him up, all while Voit is repeatedly pleading “Please don’t hit me.”

I’ve watched this man fantasize about killing his own children, yet my heart broke for him.

There’s something about Voit’s helpless demeanor that demands sympathy, even while knowing all the horrible things he’s done. The note he writes to Rossi saying “Dad, sorry I made you mad” is devastating, which is a testament to Zach Gilford’s performance. I’ve watched this man fantasize about killing his own children, yet my heart broke for him in “The Zookeeper.” Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 2 also set the stage for the end of his amnesia. It’s implied he may never his old self, but Tara resolutely insists he will, priming the audience for the real Voit’s return.

"The Zookeeper" Expands Voit’s Killer Network With A Violent Predator

The Episode's Unsub Has Scarily Realistic Motivations

The titular villain is, unsurprisingly, another member of the Sicarius network: a seemingly ordinary man whose lust for control drives him to kill, but not before torturing and dehumanizing his victims. The Zookeeper is one of the most terrifying Criminal Minds unsubs in recent years, partially due to his M.O. and familiar misogynistic rhetoric. The Zookeeper specifically targets sex workers, aiming to “tame” them until their minds are broken enough to follow his every whim. It’s the direct inverse of his reality, where his coworker not-so-subtly kvetches that you “can’t control anything in this life.”

As the episode explicitly lays out, the women The Zookeeper attacks are failed by law enforcement. Many were reported missing but not followed up on due to their profession and histories of domestic violence, sexual assault, etc. The BAU vows to be the ones who listen, with Rossi even promising a victim’s sister that he’d bring her home alive. The Zookeeper almost immediately makes Rossi a liar, as his “play thing” (a woman named Sabrina) now bores him with her submission. After finding a new victim to target, he murders Sabrina with a disgusting nonchalance.

The worst part of The Zookeeper is how successful he is. Sabrina had a straight razor in her hand and the unsub’s eyes closed. While the new victim watches on and urges her to just kill him so that they can both escape, Sabrina instead calmly and carefully shaves her captor as her final act. The new victim fights him off long enough for the FBI to arrive, but The Zookeeper dies by suicide, taking any insight into Voit’s network with him. The Zookeeper was almost too effective as an unsub, and I will certainly never rewatch his scenes.

JJ’s Unresolved Trauma From BAU-Gate Takes A Backseat To Will’s Short-Lived Return

A Forgotten Plot From Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 Returns With Deadly Consequences

Part of The Zookeeper's methodology hit too close for one agent, however. The unsub created deep-fake pictures and voice recordings, dredging up JJ's unresolved feelings about BAU-gate, the black web hub where Voit and his followers created AI-adjusted porn of JJ. Throughout the episode, JJ looks visibly uncomfortable any time The Zookeeper’s deepfakes are mentioned, and it culminates in a stomach-dropping scene just before the end of the episode.

As JJ sends her son, Henry, off to school, another teenager pulls something up on his phone and asks if that’s his mom. The dread is clear on JJ’s face, and she rushes forward, only to find them discussing an article about the FBI’s last bust. After playing off her reaction (and Henry’s concern about it), JJ walks back inside just in time for Will to collapse on the kitchen floor. In a twisted yet genius parallel to the opening scene, the BAU all stop in their tracks as a new mass text is sent out about Will’s condition.

Everyone rushes to meet JJ at the hospital, but it all wraps up quickly: JJ walks out, movements stilted and face blank, and announces that Will died of a spontaneous aneurysm stemming from the thyroid issues he discovered in the reboot’s first season.

After Will didn’t appear in Criminal Minds: Evolution season 2, many feared that the long-time character would leave permanently with an off-screen death. While “The Zookeeper” at least gave Will one final scene, his death will impact JJ for years to come. The shocking ending could have felt cheap, but it instead conveyed every visceral emotion, bolstered by A.J. Cook’s nuanced performance. Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3 took a big swing with Will’s death, but only time will tell whether it was a hit or a miss.

Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3 airs weekly each Thursday on Paramount+.