Criminal Minds: Evolution - Episode 5

Wow. For a midseason finale that was amazing. It was intense, it furthered the plot in so many complicated ways, and pulled at your heart strings. If Criminal Minds does anything well - it is cliffhangers.

You knew that when JJ went on that mission instead of Tara and then didn't tell Will, something was going to happen. So much of this season has been unpredictable but predictable. Benjamin being Elias's second hand man - did not see that coming. But something happening to JJ, it has been pretty clear.

Time to move on to a happier topic - Penelope and Tyler. Oh my gosh, we have the grumpy guy and sunshine girl/enemies to lovers trope! All wrapped in a perfect bow that was on a cat. That was utterly perfect. I hope we see more of them and that it does turn into something.

One of my icks from this season is how Luke doesn't really have a story and has fully taken Derek's place. He has a flirtatious relationship with Garcia but won't go past a friendship with her. And then he is also always the one solving or going on missions with JJ - same as Derek. We have lost his character arc and background to him being Derek 2.0. I hope we see more of him in the second half of this season.

We had another semi recycled story line of Deputy Director Bailey wanting to tag along although this time it was for different reasons. I was really hoping that it would open his eyes and we would get some change out of him. We may have gotten a bit but of course he let Benjamin go free so the Senator died. Maybe now we will see him stay out of their way a bit more.

Of course, we got to see Prentis be a complete badass. I love when we get to see her in her element like this. Overall - this was a fantastic episode! I loved the way the episode was set up. As much as I love when the actors direct an episode, I am glad we had a bit of a break so that way we got to see more of all of them. I am excited for the show to return January 12. I wasn't expecting the season to be split up but I am happy that it is only for a few weeks!

Director: Sharat Raju

Writer: Jeff Davis and Jayne Archer

Favorite Moment: The cat, absolutely the cat.

Rating: 9.4/10