Criminal Minds: Evolution is, by definition, a new era of the beloved crime drama, but one of its biggest characters has majorly changed. Since the world was introduced to Criminal Minds’ BAU members in 2005, the rotating ensemble cast of FBI agents has been a defining attribute of the series. Some fan-favorites, such as Lola Glaudini’s Elle Greenaway, left fairly early during the original run. Nevertheless, Criminal Minds continually introduced iconic new characters to join the Behavioral Analysis Unit, be it for a single season like Kate Callahan (Jennifer Love Hewitt) or over a decade like David Rossi (Joe Mantegna).

Initially, Rossi seemed like a replacement for Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), taking up the mantle as a veritable Old Schooler from the BAU’s early days. The Italian stallion was retroactively fit into the overarching lore of the series, establishing that he and Gideon were partners who helped pioneer the FBI’s study of psychopathy, forensic psychology, and the behavioral analysis we know and love today. Rossi returning as a major player in the Paramount+ continuation has, without question, contributed to Criminal Minds‘ lasting streaming success, but it’s no secret that his character feels different— for good reason, according to season 19.

Criminal Minds Season 19 Draws A Parallel Between Voit & Donnie Mallick

Unsurprisingly, Jason Gideon Continues Haunting The Narrative For Rossi

For the past four seasons of Criminal Minds: Evolution, Rossi has been fixated on one thing: the Sicarius case. The veteran profiler spent the entire first season chasing prolific serial killer Elias Voit (Zach Gilford), all the while dealing with the lingering grief of his wife’s sudden death. Evolution‘s next installment saw Rossi haunted by Voit— literally, as the man manifested as sinister hallucinations that taunted the BAU leader for months on end. Season 18 took Voit’s character in a vastly different direction, with an amnesia arc rewriting his entire personality, but Rossi remained understandably skeptical and, at times, hostile.

Criminal Minds has once again reinvented Voit’s role in the series, but “The Furies” (season 19, episode 7) also completely recontextualizes Rossi’s connection to the incarcerated unsub. After the crime drama dramatically revealed that Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) saved Voit’s life by offering game-changing testimony, Rossi gave her a palpably cold shoulder for the first half of the episode. In a fit of equal parts frustration and exasperation, Garcia went for the low-hanging fruit of bringing up Donnie Mallick (Arye Gross), the man who Rossi shot and killed for murdering Jason Gideon.

Though it happened off-screen, Gideon had one of the saddest deaths in Criminal Minds, and it rocked the audience and the BAU alike. The team managed to track down Donnie, leaving him and Rossi in a standoff. At first, the unsub lowered his weapon, claiming he was content to go to jail now that he’d achieved his killer ambitions. Whether it was in the aim of justice or plain vengeance, Rossi goads Donnie into drawing his gun again, only to shoot him down before he could make his move.

As Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) reiterates in season 19, episode 7, Rossi was cleared after the incident, but that doesn’t mean the case doesn’t plague the BAU to this day. Yet, part of the reason Rossi killed Donnie Mallick was because he would have been made a legend in prison due to murdering a federal agent. Every expectation Rossi had for Donnie, however, has become reality for Voit. Despite his capture, Voit and the Sicarius case are more popular than ever. Coupled with the fact that Voit was the FBI’s full-blown nemesis, his notoriety is salt in the Gideon-shaped wound.

Why Rossi Can’t Get Over The Sicarius Case In Criminal Minds: Evolution

Elias Voit’s Connection To David Rossi Keeps Getting Deeper & Deeper

Beyond fleshing out one of the most intriguing plots of the original series, establishing that Voit is essentially living out Donnie Mallick’s hypothetical future helps explain Rossi’s seemingly unflinching hatred of the former. Throughout the first 15 seasons of Criminal Minds, one of Rossi’s leading characteristics was his ability to detach. He was the most experienced member of the team by far, and his decades of service gave him the invaluable skill to not take every case so personally.

Of course, one could argue Rossi’s obsession with Voit has to do with timing. For all intents and purposes, Sicarius was the first big unsub Rossi went toe-to-toe with after losing his wife— and, to make matters worse, Voit nearly won. That Elias Voit is still one of the most important characters on the entire show years later is yet another reason for the BAU’s exhaustion. Regardless, Voit has always brought out something different in Rossi specifically.

In fact, Rossi’s animosity was so glaringly apparent, the FBI conducted an internal investigation to make sure he wasn’t somehow responsible for Voit’s near-death experience at the end of season 17. Granted, it would be normal for any agent to dislike the serial killer they put in jail, but the sheer fervor of Rossi’s hatred is what truly sticks out.

Elias Voit’s fate in Criminal Minds is still up in the air, but one thing is certain: for as long as the Sicarius Killer is a part of the series, he will be intertwined with David Rossi. Whether Voit reminds Rossi of Donnie Mallick or Rossi is holding a grudge over Voit trapping him underground, Criminal Minds has all but set in stone that they are an inseparable pair. Yet, no matter how it started, Voit irrefutably touched a nerve, and it was painful enough to overhaul Rossi’s original character.

Every BAU Member Has Changed Drastically Since The Original Series

As The Title Suggests, The Paramount+ Era Is All About Evolution

Naturally, Rossi is far from the only Criminal Minds character who seems different in the age of Evolution. Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (A.J. Cook) has undergone multiple major life changes, including her husband’s devastating death and her eldest son gearing up for college in California. Tara Lewis (Aisha Tyler) fell in love and married Rebecca (Nicole Pacent) after sustaining a near-fatal gunshot wound. Even Prentiss, who faced her fair share of hardships in the original series, was targeted by a group of trained assassins in season 17, alongside her ongoing battle against the FBI’s toxic bureaucracy.​​​​​​​

Similarly, Garcia’s role in Criminal Minds has been sadly diminished, to the point where longtime viewers who loved her character are frequently left with mere crumbs of character development. This isn’t a revolutionary concept: characters are changing over time. The challenge Criminal Minds: Evolution faces is safeguarding the broad strokes that made the BAU so lovable in the first place while allowing the ensemble cast to grow. Furthermore, as “The Furies” excellently demonstrates, sometimes the key is looking to the past.

Release Date

September 22, 2005

Showrunner

Erica Messer

Directors

Félix Enríquez Alcalá, Rob Bailey, Matthew Gray Gubler, Joe Mantegna, John Gallagher, Douglas Aarniokoski, Guy Norman Bee, Larry Teng, Nelson McCormick, Alec Smight, Charles S. Carroll, Rob Spera, Charles Haid, Diana Valentine, Rob Hardy, Tawnia McKiernan, Bethany Rooney, Karen Gaviola, Sharat Raju, Thomas Gibson, Aisha Tyler, Anna Foerster, Gloria Muzio, John Terlesky

Writers

Bruce Zimmerman, Virgil Williams, Edward Allen Bernero, Janine Sherman Barrois, Chris Mundy, Simon Mirren, Debra J. Fisher, Kimberly A. Harrison, Jay Beattie, Dan Dworkin, Karen Maser, Oanh Ly, Stephanie Sengupta, Aaron Zelman, Kirsten Vangsness, Erica Meredith, Andi Bushell, Holly Harold, Alicia Kirk, Jeff Davis, Randy Huggins, Edward Napier, Jayne A. Archer, Chikodili Agwuna

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  Kirsten Vangsness

  Penelope Garcia

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  Matthew Gray Gubler

  Dr. Spencer Reid