CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION: Kirsten Vangsness on Garcia’s Hope for Voit and the ‘Gross’ UnSub in ‘The Zookeeper’

Since CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION debuted in 2022, the BAU has struggled to contain criminal mastermind Voit (Zach Gilford), whose own work (along with the network he built) has caused mayhem. 

But there is still one person on the team who is trying to see if there is something salvageable in the man: Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness). Though Voit was unconscious in most of the premiere, he’s awake in the Thursday, May 15 episode, “The Zookeeper.”

“Well, in the season finale, where we did that [moment] with the glasses off and the look at him thing…I think that this is just a staple of Garcia,” Vangsness explains to Give Me My Remote. “It’s one of the things that people either love about Garcia, or…there are people who actively reject Garcia. And I think that this would be one of the reasons. And it’s okay. But it’s that she doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as an actual evil person. She believes there’s reprehensible behavior, condemnable behavior. But she really does hold on to that [mindset].” 

For Vangsness, she thinks her character’s optimism about humanity’s ultimate good comes from a simple place. “It’s because she has to do so much research,” she says. “Her whole job is like, ‘Okay, who’s the evil one, the person who did this thing to them that made them act like this? Where is it? It’s got to stop somewhere.’ So it’s behavior. Monsters are created by monsters are created by monsters.”

“Look, some people don’t have the wiring inside their own body to know that they’re not a bad person,” she continues. “Some people don’t have the wiring to not believe that they’re not all encompassing God or whatever. But I think that moment where she has the glasses off and she’s looking [Voit], she sees that little kid. She sees that being that is untouched from everything.”

Of course, not everyone is thrilled by her looking to see more in Voit. “It’s that whole thing that happens to earnest people like us, where other people are like, ‘Get your head out of the clouds,’” she says. “You know that kind of a thing. She’s gonna hold on, and that is really hard to do. Especially because he’s done terrible, terrible, terrible things. And I think she really wants to believe that there’s such a thing as redemption because a lot of times there isn’t.”

“We’ve been in relationships, we’ve had parents, we’ve had things where you’re like, ‘If I could just make them see this,’” she continues. “We’ve had government officials! If I can just make them see that this is not okay, then they will behave differently. And then you realize, no, no, that’s just more smoke and mirrors. You get past the smoke, and it’s just more mirrors because they don’t have the wiring inside of them. So the idea that there is a hope that this person has the wiring somewhere behind all the gobbledygook is hope is she’s willing to bet on.”

But that’s not the only UnSub the team has to deal with. In the hour, “The Zookeeper,” the BAU tries to find a killer from a Sicarius Network whose work is very disturbing.

“It’s, you know…” Vangsness trails off with a laugh when asked about Clyde Smets AKA The Zookeeper (Elden Henson). “It’s gross. Gross! And I think it makes your inner feminist want to set fire to a table. And also that’s why we watch it: So we want to catch the person that makes your inner feminist want to set fire to a table and say that is reprehensible behavior. And it’s not okay. And we are going to stop you from doing said things.”

“What I like in that episode is the resolve that Garcia has, which is, ‘I need to take care of these women, and I’m so angry that this person is reducing them to do whatever their whim is,’” she continues. “That she’s like so hyper-focused on, ‘I have work I have to do.’ She is the embodiment of the elephant surrounding the baby elephants; you protect the most vulnerable. That is the most vulnerable right now, and I’m zoned in, dialed in, to support.

Unfortunately, though, Garcia is going to have her work cut out for her this season. “The hits keep coming,” Vangsness warns. “So you think that’s bad? There’s some gross grossness that happens.”

CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, Thursdays, Paramount+

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