[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 18 Episode 2 “The Zookeeper.”]
Voit, serial killer Sicarius, particular person operating an entire community of individuals similar to him … may very well not be a psychopath? That’s what the assessments are telling the BAU (Behavioral Evaluation Unit) about Zach Gilford‘s character within the Thursday, Could 15, episode of Legal Minds: Evolution.
After waking from a coma, Voit remembers nothing. In truth, when Rossi (Joe Mantegna) walks into the room, Voit’s first response is, “Dad?” It’s not performed for comedy, however there’s some humor in that second figuring out their historical past.
Aisha Tyler (Lewis) directed the episode. “I used to be like, you need to play this, each single particular person you’ve seen because you wakened is a stranger. You don’t know the place you’re, you don’t know who you’re. You may keep in mind nothing about your life. And you then see a face that you just acknowledge, what would that do to you emotionally? And that was that beat,” she defined when she and Adam Rodriguez (Alvez) stopped by TV Insider’s workplace just lately. (Watch the complete video interview above for a breakdown of this episode.) “It additionally performs for comedy. You will have been misplaced at sea after which land walks in your hospital room door. And in order that beat was him simply tearing up as a result of he’s like, ‘Effectively, I don’t know who that is, however he should be my father. I don’t know anyone else. I do know him. It should be my dad.’ After which Rossi’s simply being like, ‘What the f**ok?’”
By the top of the episode, in hopes that they will get Voit to recollect something about what he appears to have put in movement together with his community of serial killers to allow them to cease them, Rossi decides to begin enjoying “father is aware of greatest” with the person who kidnapped him and has haunted him. Prentiss is fearful about him doing so, Paget Brewster confirmed.
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“She’s fearful about Dave Rossi’s psychological state,” she informed us. “She doesn’t need to pressure him to do one thing he’s not comfy doing. He hates Voit. Voit kidnapped him and beat him up and referred to as him outdated and killed folks and we needed to put his household and youngsters in witness safety. So Rossi has a really visceral hatred for Voit.”
In keeping with Kirsten Vangsness, nonetheless, Garcia can perceive the place this Voit is coming from. “Garcia’s like, this man by no means had a very good dad,” she identified. “Garcia makes use of her creativeness for all the pieces another way than I believe Rossi does. And I all the time love the Rossi-Garcia stuff. He’s so easy to simply to sit down in a second with, so she’s like, ‘Sure, who wouldn’t need him a part of the household? I get it.’”
The Season 18 premiere revealed that Garcia had been sitting with Voit whereas he was in a coma as a result of she questioned if there was one thing salvageable in him after trying into his eyes previous to his assault. In keeping with Vangsness, she does assume that’s doable, and that’s one thing she has in widespread along with her character.
“I believe that individuals are able to reprehensible habits, of condemnable habits, and it’s habits we’ve to deal with. It’s like a cop out once you say that particular person’s evil. You need to must be radically accountable for your habits and habits can all the time be reworked. It won’t be simple,” Vangsness defined, stating Voit’s personal historical past of childhood abuse. “If we’re speaking about any individual that did one thing to my cat and loved it, you’d be like, oh my God, they’re a nasty particular person. However I believe I must maintain the stress, the cognitive dissonance of, they’ve the likelihood to acknowledge what they did, take radical accountability and determine a solution to remodel that. You may’t repair the previous, however how are you going to alchemize one thing to make the longer term higher primarily based on the errors you made?”
The staff, in fact, runs as many assessments as they will assume on Voit, and the stunning half? They’re saying he’s not a psychopath. How can they argue with science? Effectively, it is dependent upon who you ask. The controversy, nonetheless, does grow to be, can folks be redeemed?
“Lewis is head, and Alvez is coronary heart,” Tyler informed us. “In quite a lot of methods, each of them are proper. Alvez is like, ‘This man’s a nasty man. You may’t imagine something he says. You may’t belief him.’ And he’s proper. And Lewis is like, ‘You may’t beat science. You may’t faux science.’ The top and the guts are going to be at battle on this season. Will we imagine our eyes and ears? Will we imagine the science?”
Added Rodriguez, “We’ve by no means confronted anyone like [Voit]. I believe it’s secure to say he’s essentially the most clever, most deliberate, most well-prepared, and thought-out thoughts that we’ve battled in all of the seasons I’ve been round for. And so, are you able to faux a mind scan? I don’t know who Voit has working for him. He may have any individual else within the hospital working for him. We’re coping with any individual that’s so diabolical that you just simply can’t put something previous him. And so my intuition because the character is, ‘I don’t care. Both means, he’s finished sufficient.’”
For Prentiss, “Now, all of a sudden, Voit is like Bambi, barely capable of stroll or speak with this reminiscence loss. And we’re all calling bulls**t and saying, there’s no means. This man is a monster serial killer. He’s bluffing us. He’s faking it. After which to slowly discover out, that’s simply not doable. You may’t beat a mind scan… Lewis is giving him two scans on the identical time, two assessments on the identical time,” stated Brewster. “That’s truly one thing that the FBI — quite a lot of serial killers have an issue with impulse management, they usually can’t do two assessments on the identical time and faux one thing.” And so these scans seeming show that Voit has modified.
It’s a storyline that excited Brewster. “You may’t have Voit by no means get away. You may’t be like, oh my God, we’re going to battle Voit for 16 extra years,” she defined. “We’re nonetheless after dangerous guys. He’s nonetheless arrange a community that, however now there’s this large wrench within the works the place he’s misplaced his reminiscence. So he’s not that very same man. So how will we get data out of him? How will we use him to cease the wheels he put in movement through the pandemic if he doesn’t keep in mind something? I assumed the writers did a unprecedented job with that.”
That’s the place Rossi enjoying dad to Voit is available in. “Rossi will do no matter is critical to carry dangerous guys to justice,” Tyler stated. “Despite the fact that Voit has been haunting him for 2 seasons — actually and figuratively haunting him — he’ll put his physique on the road to avoid wasting lives. And I believe that it’s nice emotional work for him. It’s going to be nice emotional work for Zach. That relationship performs fantastically for the entire season. And God, there’s a lot great things that’s going to occur with Voit, with Rossi, with the staff that simply speaks to the desperation of the human spirit when you will have been handled badly. Voit has by no means had a wholesome relationship and that is going to be the primary wholesome relationship he has.”
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Trying forward, primarily based on what the mind scans are saying, Garcia would belief Voit. “We solely watch characters which can be flawed, and our child woman is flawed. She has horrible boundaries. I imply, horrible. So I believe she’d belief him,” Vangsness stated. “I’m not saying she’s essentially improper, however I don’t assume any quantity of her getting burned — she gallops forth in earnest. That’s simply what she’s going to do.”
And so any upcoming interactions between these two have a degree of, “Huh, you’re good now? You’re higher?” she continued. “They had been bizarre. The entire thing was bizarre. Realizing what we learn about Voit after which seeing what occurs, I believe that it’s going to make folks be like, wait a minute. However I like that about it as a result of it does make you query internally, externally, different folks’s selections, your selections. Is it OK to depend on folks for assist or for one thing that you just recognize once you’re speculated to demonize them?”
As for his community of killers nonetheless on the market, “I’d describe this season as a snowball of disturbing that piles on prime of one another,” Vangsness teased. “I don’t assume folks will likely be disillusioned by way of the diploma of gross.”
Watch the complete video interview above for extra from Tyler (together with directing the Voit scenes) and Rodriguez about Season 18 Episode 2.
Legal Minds: Evolution, Thursdays, Paramount+