Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 4 Introduces a High-Stakes New Villain

It’s been a while since Criminal Minds ventured into the occult, and Season 4, Episode 4 shows why those entries can be so chilling. They produce some of the most creative and grisly MOs and some of the series’ most memorable scenes. This episode also finally and firmly puts the season’s antagonist on the BAU’s radar as the cat-and-mouse chase for the Fan begins.

The Fan may at first seem like another copycat killer, but with Elias Voit (Zach Gilford) alive and imprisoned, the rules of the profile have changed and the stakes have risen. Episode 4 opens on a graphic image: an unsub smashing a woman’s body with a sledgehammer while her restrained husband watches in horror.

The vial hanging around the unsub’s neck, initially crystalline, is revealed to be salt; the husband tells the BAU the killer waits until the children leave the house and is searching for a specific confession. Prentiss (Paget Brewster) draws together the occult references, the trial-like elements, and the violence against women.

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