After the ending of this week’s Criminal Minds: Evolution episode, I think I know who the next unsub will be – or, at least, who the next unsub is supposed to be. Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3 has taken something of a wild twist. Now that Elias Voit is behind bars with amnesia in Criminal Minds: Evolution, now a reformed psychopath thanks to his traumatic brain injury getting the empathetic part of his brain firing again, the criminal Sicarius network he built has taken on a life of its own. Now, new killers are awakening like sleeper agents and wreaking havoc across the country with countless murder sprees, each more brutal than the last.
The very end of Criminal Minds season 3, episode 6 presented a chilling scene. As they interview the latest unsub and demand he tell them who the next one to be activated will be, he scoffs: “Just one? Who said it was just one?” The alarms of the BAU headquarters suddenly start blaring due to a suspicious package being delivered. They cautiously open it to find one of the white Yase-otoko masks being used by the newly activated Sicarius network killers, addressed to them, and that’s what the episode closes on. It’s a tense moment, but it could have revealed a lot more than we realized.
Why The New Sicarius Network Sent The White Unsub Mask To BAU
It’s A Message – And A Taunt
There are a few ways to read the intentions behind someone sending the BAU the mask. The easiest way to read it is that it’s meant to be a taunt. The mask represents the newly-resurrected Sicarius network, and thus, the mask now sitting in the heart of the BAU headquarters is a symbolic message that the new Sicarius – whoever they are – can infiltrate the BAU at any time. All the BAU’s fancy failsafes and barriers can’t keep Sicarius from getting to them any time they want. At the very least, it suggests how easy it is for Sicarius to play mind games with them.
Related
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, Episode 6 Review – Thank Goodness The Exhausting Sicarius Plot Is Finally Going Somewhere
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 3, Episode 6 finally moved the season’s main plot along, and it added some much-needed mystery and emotional scenes.
However, I also thought it sent a different message: “One of you is the next Sicarius network killer.” Read another way, the mask being sent to BAU headquarters could be an implicit instruction for someone to put the mask on – to activate, so to speak. There would be no greater way to infiltrate the BAU than for the next network killer to be activated inside headquarters. Whether it will actually happen or not, reading through the context clues of the episode and even earlier episodes, if any member of the BAU is intended to be the next unsub, it has to be Tyler.
Voit Said He Recognized A Lot Of Himself In Tyler In The Episode
There’s A Darkness In Tyler That One Can’t Fake
On the surface, that may seem crazy. Tyler, after all, has become a valuable member of the team, finally this season a fully-fledged, official member of the BAU after being a vigilante and ally for the first two seasons. However, it’s not entirely outlandish when one considers Tyler’s past and how Voit himself talks about the newly minted BAU agent in the same episode. As Garcia questioned Voit on how he separated his inner and outer circles, Voit revealed exactly why Tyler was allowed to be part of Sicarius’ trusted inner circle: “There are some things you can’t fake. Not even on a platform like that,” he says, looking directly at Tyler as he says it. “Like?” Garcia presses him. Voit reluctantly shares what it takes. “Inner darkness,” he says. “Like you, Tyler.”
If Voit, of all people, believes that there is a darkness in Tyler that could lead to equally dark acts, it’s hard to argue he’s wrong.
That’s a sobering thing to ponder: if Voit used to be a legendarily brutal and remorseless serial killer and also a brilliant hacker, then what on earth did he see in Tyler that was convincing enough to let him into his inner circle? Voit, as Sicarius, was paranoid through and through, and fakers and those who didn’t have what it took to be part of the inner sanctum of the network would have been quickly snuffed out. If Voit, of all people, believes that there is a darkness in Tyler that could lead to equally dark acts, it’s hard to argue he’s wrong.
Even without Voit’s assessment, it’s not exactly a secret that Tyler is a deeply angry, obsessive person when it comes to vengeance. When Voit points out his darkness, Tyler retorts, “It was a darkness you put there.” That’s not exactly true, though. What Voit did, murdering Tyler’s sister, was utterly horrific. It would permanently scar anyone. But still, Voit was only responsible for Alison’s murder, not how Tyler responded. Tyler responded in the way he did, consumed with revenge and the past, because that darkness was already in him; the potential was already there. Voit just recognized it, and now, potentially, will tap into it.
If Tyler Is A Potential Unsub It Gives The “Hell Is Empty” Quote New Meaning
It Would Create The Next Great Criminal Minds Villain
If Tyler is the next unsub – or if, at least, the leader of the resurrected Sicarius network – intends for him to be, then it completely recontextualizes the meaning of the “Hell is empty” quote from Criminal Minds: Evolution season 3, episode 6. The line “Hell is empty and all the devils are here” is from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and it’s not meant to depict literal Hell. Instead, it’s a reference to the darkness and depravity that humans can exhibit right there on Earth.
Related
If You Miss Loki, You Should Be Watching Criminal Minds: Evolution – No, Really
As unlikely as it might seem, the most interesting plot in Criminal Minds: Evolution is perfectly suited to viewers who liked the MCU’s Loki.
It’s first important to remember what the Yase-otoko mask represents in Japanese culture: it depicts a ghost suffering in Hell, one who struggles with guilt, usually for breaking some societal or religious taboo. That could be a fitting description for Tyler, as well, who has been suffering since his sister died, feels tremendous guilt that he couldn’t save her, and who has bucked authority and his training in his search for vengeance. Tyler wearing the mask would be incredibly symbolically fitting, an outer representation of the inner turmoil and darkness that have plagued him for years, even before Voit.
Tyler wearing the mask would be incredibly symbolically fitting, an outer representation of the inner turmoil and darkness that have plagued him for years, even before Voit.
Tyler becoming the new unsub would actually solve two problems at once: One, it would give the BAU another focal villain now that it appears Elias Voit is well and truly reformed. Two, it’s hard to top Voit in terms of the BAU’s greatest adversary, but one of their own turning into their next enemy would certainly do the trick. How to replace Voit has been a growing problem throughout Criminal Minds season 3; it’s been impossible to see how the show can move on from him without a significant dip in stakes. Tyler becoming the next unsub killer from the Sicarius network could launch a storyline that’s even more compelling and psychologically complex than Voit’s has been over the last three seasons.
Enjoy Screen Rant’s primetime coverage? Click below to sign up for our weekly Network TV newsletter (make sure to check “Network TV” in your preferences) and get the inside scoop from actors and showrunners on your favorite series.
SIGN UP NOW
Criminal Minds
8/10
- Release Date
-
September 22, 2005
- Showrunner
-
Erica Messer
-
Kirsten Vangsness
Penelope Garcia
-
Matthew Gray Gubler
Dr. Spencer Reid