‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Boss Explains Shocking Death — And Why [Spoiler] Lived

Criminal Minds: Evolution is heading into its finale with a major cliffhanger after a death that the victim certainly didn’t see coming and a moment where it looked like Prentiss (Paget Brewster) might suffer a loss. Warning: Spoilers for Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 19 Episode 9 ahead!

Connor Storrie‘s time as Lance may have been extended to four episodes, but he doesn’t make it out of his last one alive, killed off at the hands of The Fan (Justin Kirk).

“We really wanted him to just play a bigger part in The Fan’s journey. And so using him in that way of sort of a redemption arc for him, he comes in in Episode 4, and he’s pretty much a jerk, and then Alvez [Adam Rodriguez] really enlightens us to maybe this guy doesn’t have anyone else in his life, all that kind of thing. So we wanted to step that out with the Laura [Jessi Case] of it all,” showrunner Erica Messer tells TV Insider.

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She continues, “It certainly seems like Lance gets killed. I mean, in some ways, we’re like, ‘You never say never because we didn’t actually see it.’ But yeah, at the end of the day, it felt like everyone in The Fan’s orbit was going to die. But I’m glad that we saw Lance’s character extending into the penultimate.”

Lance’s death comes after The Fan uses Brian Garrity’s (Paul F. Tompkins) ex-wife Sheila (Yvette Nicole Brown) to lure the podcast host to where he’s holding her and Laura. Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) puts a name to The Fan — James Crowley, a middling criminology author whose expertise is narcissistic patterns shared by serial killers and cult leaders, and whose latest book was published with stingray leather. James then lets himself be caught outside his home by the BAU.

But they have nothing on him (no weapons, no trace of anyone in his car). What follows is the team trying to make him unravel, with Prentiss, JJ (A.J. Cook), and Rossi (Joe Mantegna) taking turns interrogating him. But when he should flinch by Luke (Adam Rodriguez) spilling coffee across his letters to Voit (Zach Gilford), he doesn’t, surprising the profilers given his OCPD; Tara (Aisha Tyler) determines he has the personality disorder because he can function as a psychopath as long as he’s perfect at it.

They then bring in Lance to identify James since he heard his voice, but he doesn’t — even though James says “need” instead of “want” off the prompt, the exact phrase Lance recalled from when he was tortured. And so they let James go, but tail him … until, working for The Fan, Lance puts a tire spike in the path of Rossi and Tyler’s (RJ Hatanaka) car.

Meanwhile, Brian and Sheila have been left tied up, with him strapped to a device that will strangle him if she leaves the building (the church where they married). Laura is MIA. When James returns to them, he forces Sheila, through her job at the IRS, to track down people in witness protection. That’s when Lance shows up, having done what James wanted in exchange for Laura’s location. But when Lance goes out to the car, “PATHETIC” appears on the phone, and there’s an explosion, (seemingly?) killing him.

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Brian then makes Sheila take the chance to leave when she can, and James chases after her. The Fan is gone when the BAU arrives on scene, but by the time they get to Brian, he’s unconscious. Prentiss does CPR, but it appears to be too late … until he gasps awake. Brian Garrity survives, but did the writers consider actually killing him off?

“We did,” Messer tells us. “We did, and we just decided we couldn’t. And I think that is one of the reasons that Lance got sacrificed instead, because the idea of losing Brian Garrity from the future of our storytelling was just too much for us. We can’t do it. But I mean, what a fun arc for him.”

The penultimate episode then ends with Voit escaping as Hallucination Rossi wishes him luck.

What did you think of this episode? What are your predictions for the finale? Let us know in the comments section below.

Criminal Minds: Evolution, Season 19 Finale, Thursday, July 23, Paramount+