Evolution’ Reveals Rossi & Jill’s Past — Plus, [Spoiler] Become a Target (RECAP)

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 17 Episode 8 “North Star.”]

The victim count of Gold Star on Criminal Minds: Evolution just went up.

But first, Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and Jill (Felicity Huffman) have a lot to talk about—or rather, yell at each other. As the two fight in and out of his office (with a lot of door slamming), the rest of the team, of course, discusses their complicated relationship. Garcia’s (Kirsten Vangsness) surprised when Prentiss (Paget Brewster) reveals she thinks they were more than friends. JJ (A.J. Cook) notes that back when the white paper was written, Jill had to stay in the shadows while Rossi and Jason took credit. And then things get really tense when Jill blames Rossi for Jason’s death (if he hadn’t let him get killed, he’d still be in his office, which isn’t true, since he had already left the BAU).

Jill then reveals that she was the one to leak the paper; it wasn’t classified, and she thought that by reverse engineering the process, it was possible to stop kids from becoming UnSubs or any violent impulse. She wrote a book proposal for a behavioral modification school to help troubled kids, and she got investors. Stuart House was the first one. She wasn’t part of it beyond that, other than reading some files of patients being considered for the program. And now she knows they didn’t help any of these kids.

Prentiss checks on Rossi, who’s closed himself in his office, and he insists that Jill didn’t break his heart and they never fell into bed together. Rather, he’d have these thoughts that Jason wasn’t good enough for Jill, and when he couldn’t stop them, he stepped away from the BAU so the Gideons could go on as a family. By the time they separated, he was on his second wife. For Rossi, it feels like he could never get it right with anybody, and it started with Jill.

Jill gives them a list of psychologists who worked in and around Stuart House, and when JJ and Luke (Adam Rodriguez) go to see the one who hired her, they find him dead; the episode opens with Jade (Liana Liberato) and Damien (David Garelic) finding him, and he recognized the latter. The theory: When Voit (Zach Gilford, who directed this episode) told them “North Star,” they took it as a directive to target the doctors from Stuart House. But this murder has been staged to look like a suicide, and once Garcia begins looking into the rest of the psychologists on Jill’s list, it turns out they’re all dead, all ruled accidents or suicides. Jill’s the only one still alive.

Rossi promises her nothing will happen to her, and she apologizes for what she said about Jason’s death. She’s been mad at him for 20 years because he left and Jason wouldn’t; she knew the job would kill him.

Meanwhile, Voit sends his lawyer Vincent (Brian White) to bring Damien and Jade one of his kill kits. It doesn’t end with North Star, he tells them. (So what’s Vincent’s story exactly? Voit found him on his network; the lawyer used horrific photos he found elsewhere to pose as a serial killer.) After, Jade makes Damien promise if they get caught, they will never go back into cages again. Soon, they have eyes on their next target—Jill—with Damien walking right by as she and Rossi head into her house (with agents stationed outside) to look at her notes of the patients she’d assessed.

Soon, Rossi and Jill find Damien’s file; his foster dad was upset that his soon-to-be ex-wife enrolled him in Stuart House. He died eight years ago. Jill realizes that the “final exam” was a confirmation test, to confirm the behavioral modification. As the two go over the files, they realize that all these stories are exactly what’s needed to make a serial killer (kids treated terribly, then worse t Stuart House, then as they start to question their purpose in life, they’re given a big one, to make their suffering a strength, and told they can save others like them. Who’s the puppet master telling everyone to kill to save children? To put that person behind bars, they have to break Damien or Jade and prove they were lied to in order to convince one of them to give him up. Jill wants to be used as bait, but Rossi refuses and insists she’s not responsible for what happened. He learned that with Donnie Malick, who killed Jason. Jill argues that if you don’t take responsibility, someone else will; Jason tried to hide in his cabin, and look where that got him. She hasn’t been back there because of the memories, though her son is planning to remodel. And then Jill kisses Rossi, and he quickly steps back, insisting he needs to see the case clearly and has to go.

Michael Yarish / Paramount+

But as he, with Prentiss’ help, realizes soon, is that Jill wanted him to leave; she set herself up as bait for Damien and Jade, and they bit. She tells Damien that she has to take him somewhere to save a child who’s in pain. Rossi knows she’s going to try to talk the gun out of their hands.

And so Jill leads Damien to Jason’s cabin. Inside, she tells him it’s where she helped to shape the idea that created Stuart House, and without that, he could’ve had a chance at a normal life. The boy she said he could save is himself; she knows how his brain was reshaped by abuse, manipulation, and a conspiracy theory. She also knows his “first test” was killing his foster father; while he was convinced that his father abused kids, the truth was he kept trying to get him out of Stuart House and therefore became a problem. And soon, Damien believes her and realizes it was all a lie. With the FBI on scene, Jill promises they won’t hurt him and instructs him on leaving his gun and following her out. But as he gets down on his knees outside the cabin, he’s shot—by Jade, because of that promise to not end up back in a cage.

What did you think of the latest episode? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, Thursdays, Paramount+