‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 2 Ending Explained: Do Prentiss And The BAU Survive? And Is Elias Voit Dead?

Criminal Minds: Evolution aired its Season 2 finale on Thursday, August 1, and from start to finish the episode took viewers on a wild, eventful ride.

Fans of the Paramount+ original will recall that Season 2’s penultimate episode ended with the BAU arriving to Frank Church’s facility with a search warrant, and Jade Waters rigging the place with explosives after telling Mila to escape and “save the children.” So did everyone make it out alive? And was Church killed or caught? The finale answers all of our burning questions — well, almost all of them!

Season 2, Episode 10, aptly titled “Save the Children,” picks up right where Criminal Minds: Evolution‘s penultimate episode left off. Within minutes we learn the fate of the FBI members on the ground, Church, and Jade. So does the BAU save the day? Is the Gold Star mystery solved? And is the identity of the last Gold Star member revealed? Decider’s Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 finale recap has you covered.

Here’s everything you need to know about Criminal Minds: Evolution‘s Season 2 ending, including if the Gold Star case is finally closed, if Emily Prentiss survives, and if Elias Voit is dead.

Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 Ending Explained: Season 17, Episode 10 Recap

Following Jade’s intentional explosion, the Season 2 finale reveals that nearly all of our beloved BAU members are fine. The only FBI agent unaccounted for on the scene is Prentiss, along with Jade and Church.

Turns out Jade has Frank and Emily tied up in wheelchairs. After realizing that Frank was the enemy all along, Jade decides to turn on him first. Though he tries to blame the BAU again, Jade says he’s guilty of pedophilia before fatally shooting him in the head. As Prentiss braces for her demise, Jade’s PTSD takes over. She flashes back to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Church in Stuart House and mourns the loss of Damien. Meanwhile, Penelope hacks a security camera at the facility and the team learns that Jade has a new accomplice helping her, a man who they assume is the mysterious final Gold Star member, Pete B.

As Jade prepares to shoot Prentiss, she buys herself some time by asking to see the evidence they have against her. Pete, speaking in Jade’s ear, tells her to stand down and agrees to show Prentiss her case. Back at BAU HQ, the team races to figure out where Pete and Jade’s safe house is located along with Pete’s true identity. When Rossi realizes that Prentiss was a target all along, he has an epiphany, goes to visit Elias Voit in his new minimum security prison, and asks him to confirm his hunch.

Who Is Pete B, Gold Star’s Mysterious Final Member?

As Rossi tells Voit he started thinking about why he killed Deputy Director Douglas Bailey (back in Season 1), Jade plays Prentiss video messages that Bailey recorded for his younger brother…Pete. Turns out the final member of Gold Star, Pete B, is Doug’s little brother Pete Bailey and he’s holding Prentiss responsible for Doug’s death.

When Pete emerges and introduces himself to Prentiss, she flashes back to her and Doug riding an elevator together and him talking about his brother. She asks Pete why he wasn’t at Doug’s funeral and tells him that Elias Voit, not her or the BAU, killed Doug. Pete doesn’t accept her version of events — especially because the Department of Justice pinned Sicarius’ crimes on someone else. When Prentiss explains that Voit made a deal with the FBI director that will get him out of prison in five years, Pete realizes the corruption goes all the way to the top.

Flashbacks show more of Doug and Pete’s relationship as well as Doug’s concern that his brother was getting too close to conspiracy theories and Doug confiding in FBI Director Ray Madison. Once Voit and the team realize his knowledge is still valuable and he’s the key to tracking down Pete, Voit secures a new deal that allows him to be released and transported to work with the BAU once again. Much to their dismay, he returns to the office where he immediately starts cracking jokes and letting his personality loose once more.

Back at the safe house, Pete shows Prentiss a conspiracy video that alleges the FBI covered up his brother’s death. He reveals that he was the one pulling the strings with Brian Garrity, which led to her arrest, and Prentice profiles him, attempting to explain that conspiracy theories help Pete make sense of his distress. When Prentiss starts talking back and tells Jade that she killed Damien for no reason, Jade looses her patience and starts tasing her.

Back at the BAU’s office, Voit explains to the team that Doug used to send Pete video messages, but somewhere along the line Pete realized they were being heavily edited. The two determined that someone was likely screening the videos before they got to Pete, then using deepfake software to heavily manipulate them and edit out any messages or warnings from his brother. Voit admits he wrote a special app for Pete that would determine if a video was authentic or not, and that’s helpful to the BAU because the app attaches GPS tracking to any deepfake it finds, meaning they could use it to track Pete’s recently watched videos.

Voit requests Tyler as his security detail while the group travels to uncover Pete’s location and rials him up with mention of his sister. After making good on his end of the deal and getting the team coordinates for Pete, Voit also shares a moment alone with JJ and asks if she checked out BAU Gate yet. Rather than show the pain the site and its contents caused her, JJ tells Voit she did her homework and learned how to source the original footage that deepfakes are based off of. Turns out, Voit was filming his wife during sex without her permission and used the recordings to create some of the JJ videos. “You’d better pray anything with my face on it stays hidden better than one of your bunkers,” JJ tells him, threatening to expose his crime. Before she leaves, he wishes her good luck and fires off a finger gun in what initially appears to be another cocky Voit move.

As Prentiss is being tased by Jade, she desperately tries to get through to Pete. She tells him she grew to like and respect his brother Doug and swears Voit — not her or her team — pulled the trigger and killed him, though she admits she does feel responsible for his death. At last, Jade tells Prentiss they found her guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Just as she did with Church, she lifts her gun up and points it at Prentiss, only to drop it and announce, “We’re delaying your sentence.” Why? Because her team is looking for her and Pete and Jade are setting a trap to take them all out at once.

Do Emily Prentiss And The BAU Survive Criminal Minds: Evolution‘s Season 2 Finale?

With the BAU en route to rescue Prentiss, Pete and Jade rig the door with explosives, crediting Voit and his shipping container trap with inspiration to destroy the entire team. They tape Prentiss’ mouth and prepare for the BAU to blow upon opening the door, but once Rossi and company arrive on site they wait to see if Garcia can hack into the safe house security camera. Once she gets eyes on Prentiss and the two remaining Gold Star members, the team moves forward, but right before they open the door Luke stops them and JJ realizes that Voit’s “good luck” was a sign that they were about to fall into a trap.

After realizing the door is the only other way in, the team gets creative and realizes Garcia can hack into the projector Pete used to play Prentiss the videos on. Garcia projects the video of Voit in questioning, admitting that he’s the one who shot and killed Bailey. Jade runs the footage through the deepfake app and learns it’s authentic, and just like Jade did in the penultimate episode, Pete reevaluates everything he thought he knew to be true.

We flash back to Pete telling his brother Doug that if he’s wrong he’ll admit it. In present day, Pete realizes he’s been misled, puts down his gun, and tells Jade to stand down, saying, “I don’t mind dying, but I’m not dying over a lie.” He disarms the explosives, sets Prentiss free, and asks her to get them out alive. Before they both surrender, Jade holds a gun to her head with every intention of pulling the trigger. Once Prentiss talks her down, acknowledging the toll that Church’s abuse took on her, Jade puts down the gun and agrees to tell the team everything. Once in custody, she reunites with Mila, who thanks her for rescuing her, and Pete reunites with and apologizes to his parents.

Though the BAU is still devastated that Voit secured a deal that drastically reduced his sentence and security, the team celebrates and takes a night off to have — wait for it — fun! They eat snacks, drink, laugh, and get a hilarious “Hooray you’re alive” cake. We learn that Tyler submitted his resume to Quantico and could be working closer with Garcia down the line. Tara and Rebecca tell the team about their relationship. And Rossi still hallucinates Voit, but he’s making a real effort to heal.

Is Elias Voit Dead?

Speaking of Voit, Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2’s final scene checks back in with Zach Gilford’s character in prison, where two fellow inmates approach him with the knowledge that he’s Elias Voit.

The smooth-talking serial killer tries to explain that he’s Lee Duval and they’ve got the wrong guy, but the man holding a knife insists he knows all about him and the three start fighting until the end credits roll.

Is this the end of Elias Voit? And based on Rossi’s toast was he responsible for the attack? We’ll have to wait until Season 3 to see if we get some answers.

Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 1 and Season 2 are now streaming on Paramount+ along with all 15 seasons of the original Criminal Minds series, which ran from 2005-2020 on CBS.