The latest season of Criminal Minds: Evolution has come to an end in the 2024 TV schedule. The fight to catch the unsub in the high-stakes Season 2 finale got very personal for Prentiss in particular after discovering that the elusive fifth point of Gold Star was none other than Pete Bailey, the brother of slain FBI agent Doug Bailey. Fortunately, Prentiss escaped with her life and without further bloodshed to close the case, but Voit ended the season with a bloody twist. He was stabbed in prison after being moved into gen pop, so I asked showrunner Erica Messer about what the future holds for Zach Gilford's character, and the actor himself has a spinoff pitch.
What The Showrunner Told Us For What's Next For Voit
Zach Gilford's character had been convinced that moving into general population in prison wouldn't lead to him being murdered by other inmates because he'd be incarcerated under his birth name of Lee Duvall rather than Elias Voit. In fact, he was reveling in his confidence that he'd be safe as much as he was reveling in his power over JJ earlier in the season. Instead, he was shanked by other prisoners while on laundry duty in the final moments of Evolution Season 2, and the finale ended without confirming his fate.
Voit did manage to do some damage before he took a knife to to belly by splashing bleach in one of his attackers' face, but he was not in good shape by the time the final credits shockingly rolled. When showrunner Erica Messer spoke with CinemaBlend about plans to continue's Voit's storyline despite being stabbed, she shared:
I've said this to Zach himself, that he's like a cat. He just keeps getting these lives on this show, because he would have been done at the end of the first season, except he was so darn good. And then this second season, he's so darn good! So we'll see him again next year. I can't quit him.
Voit helped the BAU in a Hannibal Lecter-esque role in Season 2, much to the dismay of pretty much every member of the team. Rossi was still suffering effects of the trauma from being held captive by Voit in Evolution Season 1, and JJ had to do her job despite knowing that Gilford's character had a hand in the BAUgate dark website full of deepfake porn of her.
The villain was able to really wear them down thanks to Evolution's serialized nature compared to the more procedural format of the original series on CBS. When I noted that fans might not have gotten as much of Zach Gilford as Voit back in the CBS days, the showrunner responded:
No way! Exactly, and that's one of the reasons we felt confident in telling that story, in terms of we could let a bad guy get away for ten episodes, but we couldn't let him get away for 22 like in the network version. So that's why we thought, 'Oh, we'll catch him at the end of the first ten, and then that'll be that. We'll go on to another bad guy.' But he just was the gift that kept on giving. He planted so many little evil seeds around, including Gold Star. So we had to follow up. We'll see him next season.
Criminal Minds: Evolution was renewed for Season 3 back in June, just one day before the Season 2 premiere, so fans went into the finale without any need to worry that there would never be payoff for the Voit cliffhanger. That wasn't the case when the season was being shot, however, so how confident was Erica Messer that the show wouldn't be cancelled with one very big unresolved twist? I asked the showrunner that very question, and she shared:
I was hopeful, I should say. I'm never confident, sadly, in this business, but I was very hopeful, and I felt like our partners at Paramount+ would want to keep telling this story as well. Ending it with that cliffhanger felt like a relatively safe thing to do, even though we had planned that before we knew about the renewal, So, hopeful, I would say, versus confident.
Despite fans heading into hiatus with the comfort of a Season 3 renewal and now confirmation from Messer that Zach Gilford will be back, that doesn't mean that he'll be back behind bars or taunting the BAU like he was this latest time around. Rossi's arc in Season 2 is proof enough that Gilford can be present in a scene even when the real Voit isn't.
That of course doesn't determine that Voit died and we'll just see him via Rossi's hallucinations moving forward, but there are certainly more questions than answers. And that brings us to the actor's idea for a spinoff centered on his character!
Zach Gilford's Spinoff Idea
With Voit confirmed to return in some form or other, it's currently a waiting game to find out what Erica Messer has planned for him in Season 3 of Evolution, which will be Season 18 of Criminal Minds overall. For his part, Zach Gilford spoke with Us Weekly about the series that is currently available with a Paramount+ subscription, sharing his idea for a sister show to Criminal Minds:
I’ve been pitching the idea of a spinoff where Voit somehow gets away. Criminal Minds can keep going, but Voit is this white whale that got away. So he is always in the ether and he’s mentioned and thought about, [but] then you can have a Voit show.
Voit certainly proved himself to be a slippery bad guy over his first two seasons, and I have no trouble believing that he has connections to get himself some resources if he was to escape prison. There is the question of what he'd be doing, though! Gilford went on:
[In the spinoff], Voit is doing whatever. Probably trying to figure out a way to win his family back, which I don’t think will ever happen. He’s aware of what’s going on with the BAU. And [the shows] are integrated, so there could be crossovers or there could be none.
I would watch that! Even if a Voit spinoff is unlikely to happen, a future standalone episode or two about his life and exploits might be interesting. It's clear that Gilford is invested in his character after two seasons as the killer, to the point that he had an unexpected take on Voit's crimes earlier this year.
It's much too early to expect Paramount+ to announce a premiere date for Season 3, but at least there's no question of whether or not the Voit cliffhanger will ever be resolved. As the wait continues for what comes next, you can always revisit both seasons of Evolution so far streaming on Paramount+ now as well as the fifteen original seasons of Criminal Minds that aired on CBS.
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