2025 gave us a queer sports romance that had everyone swooning over a suave Russian hockey player who knew exactly when to drop a flirty comment to leave everyone flustered. Heated Rivalry shot Connor Storrie into stardom and showcased his potential for versatility, as he not only mastered Ilya’s teasing and tough side but also the raw vulnerability that simmered beneath. However, it is his latest guest star role in Criminal Minds: Evolution that cements the actor’s range, as he steps into the BAU without a Russian accent and a dangerous glint in his eyes. Season 4, Episode 4 brings Storrie into the fold as a stalker ex-boyfriend named Lance, who plays an integral part of the season’s larger storyline about the elusive Fan, and his scenes are chillingly and humorously memorable.
Connor Storrie Plays a Deceptively Major Role in ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ Season 4
In Episode 4, the Fan is firmly on the BAU’s radar, and he sends a series of photographs to the bureau, leading them down a rabbit hole to Lance, the ex-boyfriend of the woman in the pictures. At first, it seems like Lance is the Fan, as he possesses the same obsessive qualities that lead him to stalk his ex-girlfriend, and he is intelligent enough to maneuver around J.J.’s (A.J. Cook) questions without giving too much away. But upon Lewis’ (Aisha Tyler) test with a leaky pen, they realize that Lance doesn’t have the same level of obsessive compulsion as the Fan, as the real unsub would have lost their head if their writing was anything less than perfect.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
In this way, Storrie’s performance becomes an integral aspect of the episode and this major storyline. He teeters on the line of ambiguity, delivering us enough sharpness that the team can organically suspect he may be the unsub, but also has enough emotional volatility bubbling beneath the surface to make us doubt the theory. It is the first time we’ve seen the Fan make a substantial play against the BAU, using Lance as a Trojan horse to access the team’s bag of tricks, thereby making Storrie’s brief role in the series a major turning point. It is the first time we’ve seen the team this rattled in a long time, as the Fan defies being pigeonholed into a copycat profile by taunting Voit (Zach Gilford) and the inclusion of Lance.
Connor Storries Showcases His Range in ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’
It’s also exciting to witness another side to the actor’s range, where there is a borderline homicidal glint in his eyes, and a deadpan face as Lance truly believes he is doing nothing wrong by stalking his ex-girlfriend. However, Storrie’s strongest scene arrives when Lance is facing off against Alvez (Adam Rodriguez), where the agent threatens and manipulates Lance into putting an end to his extracurricular activities. Alvez does so through a mix of his intimidating persona and by using Lance’s abandonment issues against him. Here, Storrie switches from furious and offended to a subdued vulnerability that is haunting to watch. It is almost reminiscent of the latter episodes of Heated Rivalry, where Storrie delivered some raw performances, but in Criminal Minds, it feels more like Lance is a rabid animal that just got broken in by Alvez.
We may have fallen in love with Storrie’s Ilya in the rink, but Criminal Minds delivers us another version of the actor that indicates his stardom will not end there. While playing a pivotal role in the season, Storrie flexes his range through an emotionally volatile performance, but he also demonstrates his capability to switch his emotions in a split second when he shares the screen with Rodriguez. He not only makes an impact on Criminal Minds, but also shows promise for his future career.
