The Season 17 finale of the Paramount+ series Criminal Minds: Evolution wrapped up the Gold Star storyline as the final puzzle piece fell into place when the last member was revealed. Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) had to confront Jade and her newest partner, in order to unravel the conspiracy they’d convinced themselves of, with the hope that the truth would save the BAU. But resolving the Gold Star case does not sever their ties to Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), who will inevitably continue to be a thorn in the side of the BAU until they can finally prove that he’s Sicarius.
During this one-on-one interview with Collider, showrunner Erica Messer talked about the resolution of Gold Star, how it all ended up connecting back to Doug Bailey, the complexity of a character like Jade (Liana Liberato), getting a glimpse into a very high Prentiss, how much of next season they’ve already figured out, and keeping Voit around for more.
When we spoke at the beginning of the season, we talked about how you didn’t know from the beginning that you would be bringing Elias Voit or even Tyler Green back. But when you killed Doug Bailey, did you know, at that time, that you’d eventually circle back to his brother, or did that evolve later on?
ERICA MESSER: We knew before that finale aired because there was a line that Prentiss had at the wake where she said “only son.” Before we mixed, we had Paget [Brewster] do ADR and we said, “Can you change only son to older son?” And she was like, “Okay, what are you doing?” And we were like, “Don’t worry about it.” So, we knew before we started fully breaking the season that we were gonna bring Bailey’s brother into it, in some way.
So much of this season connects back to last season, and I really appreciate how those threads were not forgotten.
MESSER: We didn’t break Seasons 1 and 2, or Seasons 16 and 17, as a 20-episode arc. Like I’ve said, I thought Zach [Gilford] was gonna be our bad guy for that one season, and then we’d move on and find another bad guy. Except he was so dang good that we had to keep him around, and if you’re keeping him around, you’ve got to keep the history of that character around. He’s been wreaking havoc everywhere he goes for so long, and killing Bailey was definitely part of that. We knew when we wrote that finale that Gold Star was gonna be a thing because he says, “Gold Star.” We knew that meant something personal to Bailey, but we just didn’t know exactly how his brother would have been tied into it until we got into the nitty-gritty of this season’s break.
‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Showrunner Erica Messer Previews What’s Next for the BAU
How much of the next season have you planned so far?
MESSER: We’re maybe halfway through the writers’ room for the season. We’ve got quite a bit, but not everything. It still feels like that fluid time because we’re not in production yet, so nothing is set in stone yet.
Will we see Elias Voit again?
MESSER: Oh, yeah. He’s not done. I feel like, at the end of every season, he just finds a new way to cause trouble.
It feels like now you have to keep him around until you can prove that he’s Sicarius, so that you can really make him pay.
MESSER: Yeah, that’s right.
Will we also see Jade or Pete Bailey or even Mila again?
MESSER: We wanted to be clear that the Gold Star investigation is complete. There won’t be anything dangling from that, and those three characters are so heavily tied to that storyline. Right now, we’re not seeing bringing them back, but I would never say never. And like I said, we’re not done with the season break yet. It feels complicated to say, on one hand, “Gold Star is over,” and then, “By the way, here are some Gold Stars.” That’s where we are right now. It just feels like we wanna have a clean break.
You just keep bringing on actors that are so good.
MESSER: I know. They’re all so good. We didn’t even meet Alex, who played Pete, until we were shooting the finale. He’s so amazing.
Liana Liberato was so good. There’s something about Jade that seems so young and innocent, but she’s also believable as a killer, and those two things are not easy to find in one actor. Did you have a very clear idea for who that character would be and needed to be, or did that evolve with her, as she brought what she brought to it?
MESSER: It was a little bit of both. On the outside, we wanted this person who you would never imagine had all this darkness on the inside, which is a little nod to what we did with Voit, the season prior. You wouldn’t expect that guy to be the darkness that he is. Last Season, Season 1 or Season 16, we didn’t really have any female killers. This year, we wanted to course correct that. And so, when we introduced her in episode four, you think she’s this stranded motorist that you don’t want to be on the side of the road by herself. And then, you find out she’s just fine. She’s not just fine, she’s a horrible killer, but she’s going to take care of herself. Then, when the romance between her and Damien happened, she still is a person who needs that connection with someone else. She isn’t a cold machine. We had all those pieces in place, but then when we met Liana, she fit all of it. And then, we wanted to see how long we could keep her around. That’s why, at the end of episode nine, it looks like maybe she blew herself up. She was like, “Oh, no!” And I was like, “No, she’ll be back in episode 10.” We didn’t want to kill that character. We killed Damien, and that felt like his journey was complete, especially after Felicity Huffman talks him down. Jade felt like she still had more to do, so it was nice to be able to keep some somebody around.
It was a really interesting layer to bring in a character like Mila because then we see Jade in a different way and we’re reminded that she was also a victim, even though it did lead to her doing horrible things.
MESSER: Yeah, absolutely. And it was still happening. Their mission to save the children, they actually did save children at the end.
I also found it particularly compelling that Emily Prentiss was the one that got to face off with Jade, apart from the team, and was the one to intellectually try to reason with her. What led to that moment? What’s the conversation like when you tell the actor about this really cool moment they’re going to have, but that you’re going to tie them to a chair for it?
MESSER: It all started in the finale last season when she felt the responsibility of Doug Bailey’s death. Even though it was not her fault, she carried that guilt. Little did she know that others blamed her for his death, too. His brother carried that anger toward her, and so did so did Jade. And so, it made the most sense for Prentiss to be the one having to endure the torture. She mentally tortured herself, and now she’s physically getting tortured. But then, she also pulls the blinders off of them and says, “This is not everything you think it is. Your brother wasn’t protecting his secret.” There are a lot of interesting conversations that could happen because while some of what the Gold Stars believed was true, it was a truth that they needed it to be versus the whole truth. It’s an interesting commentary on the world. People have different beliefs, and there’s truth on both sides of every story.
‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Co-Stars Paget Brewster and A.J. Cook Bonded Over Cheese Poofs
One of my favorite moments this season was JJ hanging out with a very high Emily Prentiss. How did that come about? Could that have only existed on this version of the show?
MESSER: Yes, 100%. We are always challenging ourselves to tell those storylines, or even just have a scene that might not exist elsewhere. That episode, in particular, was loaded with them. We had the dream sequence that opened it up, where Prentiss gets killed by Voit. We have Rossi really in a dark place and needing to have therapy with Lewis. All those scenes were character. The trick in that episode is it was actually a bottle show. We did all of that on our set. When you’re gonna challenge yourself to do that, you have to bring the stories that can distract from the fact we’re not out in the world. What would those two look like together? We consulted with our FBI people to say, “Is there a world where this could happen?” And they were like, “In today’s world, absolutely.” We got permission to do that, and then we just ran with it, bringing back the fun thing with the cheese poofs. Cheetos have always been JJ’s weak spot. It just was so much fun. For those of us who have been on the show the whole time and have been with those two on their journey, as actresses and as characters, they’ve overcome a lot. A lot of what JJ and Prentiss were talking about has to do with that history of them being there and being like, “They fired us, they got rid of us, and now we’re back.”
Was that all scripted, or was any of that improvised between the two of them?
MESSER: It was scripted. My daughter eats her snacks with chopsticks like that, and they had a little bit more fun with the chopstick gag than was scripted. But all those words were there.