Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Oedipus Wrecks

Emily Prentiss has been on the periphery of the action so far, largely controlling things when it comes to Deputy Director Bailey.

On Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 Episode 5, she did a fair amount of controlling and also eased back into the field.

It’s great seeing her in action again.

When Bailey wanted to kick Rossi out of his leadership position, he thought it would be a boon for his management.

Instead, Prentiss decided to tackle two roles, one as a bureaucrat and the other as a federal agent in charge and in the field.

This was the perfect case for her to spread her wings again. It was tailor-made for her strengths and allowed her to dig at Bailey.

You cannot hide anything from a team of profilers, so what else do I need to know?

Prentiss

Who hasn’t wanted to make that guy squirm since we first made contact?

Brutal murders were coming to light involving severe wounds by way of bites. What was making the wounds weren’t just any teeth but a custom-made set of razor choppers.

As bodies were uncovered, the team recognized a pattern of increasing violence. The man (because isn’t it almost always?) behind the mouth honed his craft with alarming precision.

As with every case now, the team wonders if this will be related to Sicarius. All roads lead back to that monster for the time being.

Amazingly, they didn’t even need to make the connection to get a little free rein from Bailey because the victims were connected via a DC dating app, one that Bailey frequented.

He’d even dated one of the victims.

Of course, with his political career on the line, Bailey suddenly had more respect for the team’s unique set of skills. He wanted them to succeed in finding the killer before his own name was dragged through the mud.

That turned out to be a little more than he’d bargained for when the killer turned out to be related to a sitting senator.

Excuse my language, but she was a foul bitch and stood for everything that is wrong with our government.

Diplomatic immunity is for ambassadors to our country, and when they come under suspicion of a crime, it can be very aggravating for the rest of us.

Well, the reason that immunity is so freely given is that our government officials have their own type of immunity just by holding sway over their office, others in the system, and their constituents.

Alvez: So he turns these women into his mother to get the attention she didn’t give him when he was little.
Prentiss: Or worse, maybe she did.

She wasn’t under attack, but her son Benjamin was, and he was beyond dangerous — all because of his mother. Talk about mommy issues. The poor guy was kidnapping and murdering women in his quest to get revenge on his mother for her sick style of mothering.

It sounded a lot like the kind of thing Sicarius would be looking for online to manipulate more of his growing army.

The hunt for Sicarius never takes a breath, so Rossi and Garcia were working diligently to uncover more evidence to find and capture him. Rossi had his work cut out for him as Garcia and Green were not on pleasant speaking terms.

But they both want to see an end to Sicarius’s reign, so Rossi massaged the situation by aiming for Garcia’s Achilles heel: kittens.

Garcia: Morning. How’d you sleep?
Green: My cell doesn’t have a mattress, so, you know. Not great.

I cannot be the only one who sees a future for Garcia with Tyler Green. Their arguments aren’t much more advanced than a boy pulling on a girl’s pigtails in the schoolyard.

They have a mutual, if resentful, respect for each other’s capabilities, and since he’s sure to be freed, I can’t help but wonder if he’ll be a new addition to the team before the season is up and a potential love interest for Garcia.

How do I know you’re not a boundry-breaking jerkface forever?

Garcia

It’s not that far off the mark, and love does make the world go round. Tara’s got it, Rossi had it, Bailey’s looking for it, and JJ is trying to keep it.

There was even a conversation amongst the group about the hellishness of the dating pool, and more than one person envied JJ for her successful partnership with Will.

As we all know, perfection is an impossibility, and even a love as strong as JJ and Will’s suffers fractures. JJ might have married Will by being in love with Spencer, and even if she didn’t, she and Will have a relationship shrouded in other secrets.

I’m still not sure that Will was telling the truth about his white cells issue being related to an easily treatable thyroid condition. He could be “caring” for JJ by shielding her from the truth in the same way she did it by pulling back on sharing another time she put her life in danger, despite a promise made by both to do better.

As it turns out, Benjamin was tied to Sicarius, and he’s so used to his protected status that he had no problem shouting it to the rooftops or the underground bunker.

Benjamin sang like a canary, sharing details the team had to explore.

Even armed with that new information, Bailey failed our country by cowering in the presence of Benjamin’s mother (Did she have a name? Who cares?) and freeing Benjamin in the process.

That led to what has to be the most satisfying Sicarius moment we’ve had so far. Mommy thought she had it all under control, but she played right into Benjamin’s hands.

His desire to kill her would have increased, and he probably would have done it eventually, but the man he’d been paying for assistance showed up in a big way.

It’s wrong to laugh when a son laments the FBI taking his murder teeth and his murderous tutor just chop-chops his teeth, essentially saying he’s got all he needs for this final kill.

Yes, it’s wrong to laugh, but I did. And I cheered for Sicarius as he had, for one moment, a little bit of Dexter in him. Benjamin was no prize, but he became who he was because of his mother, who used her power to corrupt and endanger. Good riddance.

That brings us to the final moments of the episode, which finds JJ and Alvez infiltrating another underground shipping container, this one rigged to blow.

There were so many things wrong with that scene. Honestly, if they aren’t dead, they deserve to be severely reprimanded.

Sure, they didn’t want to wait to see what was inside. That’s been their MO all season. But as they both descended into the darkness without anyone backing the up above, I was waiting for Omnipresent Elias to slam the doors on them.

That’s not what he did, but he did rig the place to blow, and we don’t know if Alvez and JJ survived. It’s unlikely they won’t because the team has already been decimated in many ways, but it was a really stupid move on both their parts.

Even worse, now JJ has to explain the awkward stutter of a phone call to Will because she has to come out of this a little worse for the wear, right?

Whatever is going on with her and Will finds them ducking and weaving responsibility for their health and their relationship, and I can’t imagine we’ve been a party to it if this move doesn’t cost JJ in some way.

Prentiss tied a lot of her assistance in the case to Bailey laying off the BAU. Now that he’s responsible for a woman’s death, a senator, no less, can he be counted on to carry through?

He shouldn’t be running such an important arm of the bureau. He puts his own benefit above the lives of others. But sometimes, the known evil is better than what comes next.

Do you think he might be less harmful to the BAU after his experience?

Share your thoughts on that, JJ and Will, and Garcia and Green, as well as how Prentiss took her hot older woman show on the road while manipulating Benjamin. Woooweee!

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Carissa Pavlica is the managing editor and a staff writer and critic for TV Fanatic. She’s a member of the Critic’s Choice Association, enjoys mentoring writers, conversing with cats, and passionately discussing the nuances of television and film with anyone who will listen. Follow her on Twitter and email her here at TV Fanatic.

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