Did ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Just Kill off 2 Characters?

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 18 Episode 7 “…All the Devils Are Here.”]

The end of the Thursday, June 19, episode of Criminal Minds: Evolution either proves our theory that Rebecca’s (Nicole Pacent) friend Evan (Geoff Stults) can’t be trusted or tells us we’re way off-base.

Evan was introduced in Season 18 Episode 6, and honestly, he came across as too nice. There was the history, and Tara (Aisha Tyler) was concerned that he wanted to get back together with her girlfriend, but he said he just wanted to introduce them to his fiancée with dinner. Plus, he showed up just before the BAU was delivered the Yase-Otoko mask, representing a ghost suffering in hell and now the hallmark of Voit’s (Zach Gilford) network seemingly operating without him. It was a clear message.

Now, in Season 18 Episode 7, Rebecca finds out Evan’s replacing her as the Department of Justice’s liaison to Voit, due to the possible conflict of interest since she’s dating Tara. But he’s on her side, he promises, and will do anything to help. And so he’s the one playing mediator between Voit and his lawyer and the BAU as a victim pops up having been forced to swallow sicarius spiders, using the serial killer’s old trick. Evan does seem to want to help the BAU throughout.

But then he tells Tara and Rebecca at the end of the episode that Voit’s lawyer had an issue come up in the case that he wants to discuss with them, not about a conflict of interest, and he insists on meeting at his office. As he sees it, it’s their turn to come to him. (The lawyer is the one to come to the BAU with Voit throughout the episode, but still, that’s suspicious.) The three of them head over, and as they walk through the parking garage, Evan suggests that the best way to approach the meeting is like they’re about to confront an UnSub. And then what happens? Someone in one of those Yase-Otoko masks is waiting and shoots at them. Both Tara and Evan are hit. There’s blood under Evan, but it’s Tara we — and Rebecca — are most concerned about, having been hit in the torso.

Now, we know that Tara survives, given Aisha Tyler’s filming for Season 19. When it comes to Evan, he could either be killed off — yet another loss for the BAU this season — or, and maybe we’re completely off, he just set up Tara (and Rebecca). Yes, he, too, has been shot, but it may not be fatal. And given that Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and Prentiss (Paget Brewster) are now thinking that membership into the network is like a gang initiation. That means members must prove their loyalty … and maybe Evan did just that by luring Tara into that garage. Maybe he’s been testing Tara this entire time, wanting her to think that he was interested in rekindling something with Rebecca (like she thought) and with that line about approaching the meeting like confronting an UnSub … right before they walked right into one’s path.

Or maybe it’s Voit’s lawyer who walked them into a trap. We have zero details about what he wanted to supposedly discuss with Tara and Rebecca (who, notably, is off the case) and Voit didn’t seem like he was making any calls to his lawyer after what happened with the UnSub who used the sicarius spiders. (The team lost another victim, right in front of them, while someone pretending to be Voit’s dead uncle Cyrus taunted him in a video call.) We’ll have to wait and see what Season 18 Episode 8 reveals.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, Thursdays, Paramount+