Season Analysis

Criminal Minds

Season 18 Analysis

Season Woke Score

out of 10

Season Overview

The new season picks up six months after fellow inmates attacked the notorious Sicarius Killer, Elias Voit, leading his restless followers on the dark web to begin wreaking havoc all over the country. In order to stop this nefarious group from killing more innocents, the BAU is forced to work alongside an increasingly unpredictable Voit, who of course has his own agenda.

Season Review

Season 18, also known as 'Evolution' Season 2, maintains the series' shift toward a heavily serialized plot, focusing on the Gold Star conspiracy and the forced collaboration with serial killer Elias Voit. The core of the BAU team, composed largely of established female characters in positions of authority, remains the main investigative force. The show continues a trend of sidelining or neutering traditional male roles and family structures while explicitly foregrounding alternative sexualities. The central conflict critiques institutional corruption within the American system, casting the government's own psychological programs as the source of the season's monsters. The show's focus is less on case-of-the-week profiling and more on the emotional drama and interpersonal dynamics of the main characters, filtering the criminal investigation through a lens of social and psychological critique.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics5/10

The main BAU cast is already racially and gender diverse, with women holding the highest positions of authority by merit of their established careers. The season's central plot does not revolve around race or gender issues, but the casting and promotion of minority characters to high-level roles are prominent. The narrative centers on a criminal conspiracy rather than a lecture on privilege, keeping the score moderate.

Oikophobia6/10

The 'Gold Star' conspiracy is revealed to be a clandestine psycho-grooming program based on the BAU's own 'white papers' and run by American institutional figures. This narrative portrays the corrupt, shadowy elements of the United States state apparatus as the progenitor of the season's serial killers, implicitly framing the nation's core structures as fundamentally flawed and the source of its own internal evil. Agents treat the assassins created by the program as victims of the system itself.

Feminism8/10

Established male characters like Rossi are portrayed as emotionally fragile, sitting in an office to cry and being told by a female colleague that he does not have to be a 'John Wayne' type. The show actively strips traditional masculine traits from the older lead while portraying younger male agents as 'neutered' and without strong, independent character arcs outside of being obsessed with a female peer. The most significant heterosexual relationships in the show are killed off or written out, clearing the way for female-centric and non-traditional dynamics.

LGBTQ+8/10

The main character Dr. Tara Lewis's lesbian relationship is not just present but is noted as the one surviving, front-and-center romantic arc among the BAU team members. This choice spotlights the alternative sexual identity as the primary romance of the series, while the narrative simultaneously dismantles the heterosexual, nuclear family structures of other main characters.

Anti-Theism2/10

The core conflict is psychological and political, dealing with criminal networks, government conspiracies, and psychological trauma rather than religious conflict. The show's nature as a dark procedural implicitly relies on an objective 'evil' but does not explicitly target or vilify organized religion, specifically Christianity, in this season's central plot. Faith is neither celebrated nor demonized.