Criminal Minds Evolution Season 3 Episode 2 Recap: The Zookeeper

Season 3 of ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ gets off to a tense start as Elias Voit’s influence over the underground serial killer network continues to manifest in menacing ways. In episode 2, titled ‘The Zookeeper,’ the killer finally wakes from his coma and swiftly finds himself with a severe case of amnesia. Naturally, this invites adamant disbelief from many of the BUA Agents, especially Alvez and Rossi, who refuse to detach the criminal from his abhorrent past. As such, Tara finds herself conducting a psychological evaluation of Voit’s psyche. Meanwhile, other members of the team discover a new disturbing villain on the radar, who has a history of abducting sex workers and putting them through mental and physical torture. As these two storylines unfold in tandem, Prentiss and her team ride the edge of a breakthrough. SPOILERS AHEAD!

The BUA Learns About Voit’s New Circumstances

In the last episode, we see Voit returning to consciousness from the coma he had fallen into after the attack in the prison. The next day, the same news interrupts the mornings of the BUA Agents, informing them of the return of their nemesis. Nonetheless, they’re in for a surprise at the hospital, where they discover that although Voit has woken up, he retains no memory of his actions or his identity. In a troubling turn of events, he even mistakes Rossi for his father upon their first meeting post-coma. As it turns out, the notable head injury, paired with his sudden exit from the coma, has sent his brain into a retrograde amnesia, erasing his memories as well as even verbal communication abilities.

This means if his condition remains, Voit could be considered incompetent in the eyes of the law, resulting in even an empathetic pardon. For the same reason, the team instantly puts Tara on the job of putting the killer through evaluations to confirm or deny the legitimacy of his amnesia. Meanwhile, Tyler is reassigned under Prentiss as his first federal assignment due to the reopening of Voit’s case and his close ties to it. And for good reason, too, considering the newbie finds a notable development in the case, regarding the killer’s attorney, Vincent Orlov. This brings the department into possession of the lawyer’s hard drive, which in turn leads them to an exchange of human trafficking torture porn videos. As such, a new unsub serial killer comes on the team’s laser-focused radar.

A Corporate Middleman’s Inhumane Search For Power

Once the BUA team learns about the Zookeeper, a serial killer who abducts, abuses, and kills women in deadly humiliation rituals, they immediately begin investigating his case. The unsub targets sex workers and tortures them in a myriad of ways. Once he breaks their spirit and considers them “tamed,” he kills his captive and moves on to his next victim. Through methodical profiling, they establish a number of other personal details about him, such as his professional life, financial status, and a general silhouette of his identity. Furthermore, Rossi and the others get in touch with the victims’ families to parse out any other details about their unsub.

Simultaneously, in a different part of town, an office worker, Clyde Smets, brings a woman, Tia, home with him. The latter is a sex worker whom he has hired for an intense BDSM scene. Although he initially remains respectful and normal, he eventually shows his true colors once he has a cord wrapped around the woman’s neck. Thus, before Tia knows it, she falls victim to the Zookeeper, locked away in his basement/torture dungeon. Even though she finds another woman, Sabrina, in the dungeon, the latter seems to have become entirely submissive to Clyde and refuses to disobey his orders. In the end, the serial killer ends up slitting Sabrina’s throat in front of his new victim, promising horrifying doom in her own future.

Clyde has been running this monstrous operation of abducting sex workers for his sadistic pleasure for years now. He intentionally preys on vulnerable women, banking on the callousness of the justice system to help him get away with his crimes. To smooth things along, he even uses AI to fabricate social media updates and voicemails to dissuade his victims’ friends and family from looking for them. Clyde employs all these tactics after abducting Tia, confident in his belief that no one would come looking for her. Nonetheless, his connection to Voit’s system has effectively put the best of the BUA on his case.

Clyde’s demise pushes Rossi to Make a Difficult Choice

The revelation that the Zookeeper is a part of Voit’s still-ongoing network elicits a range of intense emotions for Rossi and his team. The continued torment and exploitation of these women is a direct result of the pathways that the killer had established before his arrest. However, now there’s a possibility that he might walk away from this whole thing scotch-free without even the memories of his heinous actions. As a result, in a fit of rage, Rossi ends up storming Voit’s hospital room to see if he recognizes the Zookeeper’s identity. Yet, all the incident does is increase the threat of the BUA getting blacklisted from evaluating Voit any longer.

Eventually, a lead emerges about the Zookeeper through Sabrina’s former boyfriend-turned-pimp. He is able to match the profile of the unsub to someone who had reached out to his ex-girlfriend almost a year ago as an interested client. He met Sabrina at an office Christmas party for an insurance company, which gives the BUA prominent details about their target’s place of work. From there, all it takes is a few phone calls and federal raids to identify Clyde and procure his address. However, one of his colleagues manages to tip him off moments before the authorities knock on his door. As a result, he rushes to kill Tia, presumably to tie up any loose ends before making his own escape.

Nonetheless, Tia takes advantage of his harried state to escape her cage and overpower him in a fight. By the time the FBI, led by Tyler, arrives at the location, she already has a blade to her abuser’s throat. Still, she manages to show restraint and hands him over to the agent instead of ending his life. Even so, Clyde manages to get his hands on a blade and slits his own throat, complying to Voit’s code of getting killed before getting caught. As a result, the BUA loses out on any additional information they could’ve learned about the underground network.

For the same reason, Rossi realizes that despite his reservations, the team’s best shot relies on him playing the pretend part of Voit’s father to jog his memories and uncover the secrets of his criminal network. The end of the episode also brings a personal tragedy for JJ, whose husband, Will, tragically passes away due to health complications. Thus, as it stands, the team emerges from this episode, earning significant wins as well as losses.