The last episode before May sweeps was pretty formulaic and predictable. It might have been more engaging if I hadn’t seen this plot before on a million other crime shows. We get it already, TV. Kids are evil sociopaths.

Episode Summary

In New Jersey,  little Kyle Murphy has disappeared and when the BAU arrives his parents, Dan and Sarah, are making a plea to the news media for his safe return. Dan and Sarah are helped and comforted by Detective Lancaster, a family friend, who has been investigating the murders of two other young boys.

The BAU arrests a registered pedophile, Hugh Rollins, who becomes the prime suspect in the other two murders. When Kyle’s body is discovered and some of his belongings are found in Rollins’ house, it looks like Rollins will go down for all three deaths. However, while the other two murders are undeniably tied to Rollins, the profile doesn’t fit with how Kyle died. It doesn’t help that Rollins’ confession, which he gave to avoid a harsher prison, doesn’t match the details of Kyle’s death.

After further investigating, the team discovers evidence that Kyle died at home and that there was a cover-up to make it look like Rollins abducted and killed him. Lancaster, who is trying to protect the Murphys, confesses to the crime but the BAU doesn’t believe him.

Eventually, the true story comes out. Kyle’s older brother, Danny, confesses to murdering his little brother after Kyle accidentally broke his model plane. Dan and Sarah tearfully tell the team that Danny kept saying he was sorry so they thought it was best to cover for him by framing Rollins. However, Prentiss observes Danny’s total lack of remorse and is horrified when Danny casually admits to previously killing a family pet.  She informs the devastated Murphys that their surviving son is a sociopath and will never feel guilt or empathy.

High Points

The acting was solid all around in this episode, particularly by John Billingsley, who played Hugh Rollins. He managed to make a sickening, cowardly, and undoubtedly guilty character somewhat sympathetic. Spencer Garrett also stood out as Lancaster, who wanted to solve the crime but also protect his friends.

Low Points

As I already mentioned, this type of plotline has been done to death. Off the top of my head, I can think of CSI, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and CSI: Miami episodes that have dealt with sociopathic children who kill their sibling or another child. This wasn’t a bad episode but it didn’t add anything new to the trope.

One of the reasons I like this show is the funny or revealing character moments we get in the episodes. This one really didn’t have any of those beats. If I hadn’t watched an episode before, I’d think all the members of the BAU team were generic and one-dimensional.

Next week: Moonlight‘s Alex O’Loughlin returns to TV as the latest unsub the BAU is trying to catch.

In this episode of Criminal Minds, Twilight’s Jackson Rathbone plays a cross-dressing sufferer of Dissociative Identity Disorder who rapes and murders frat dudes. That plotline does not even approach the ludicrousness of some of the things I’ve heard go on in Stephenie Meyer’s books. At least there were no babies chewing their way out of their mother’s uterus.

Episode Summary

The BAU goes on spring break together! Okay, not really. They travel to the Texas gulf coast because two college guys were raped and killed in the same hotel during spring break. They’ve got to solve the crime soon, since spring break ends in two days.

After a third murder, the team theorizes there are two killers working as a team. Their profiles outline the killers as a woman and a man; the woman seduces the victims and ties them up, then the man takes over and rapes and kills. The BAU hone in on Adam and Julie, a handyman and the hotel manager. Garcia explains that Adam was brutally abused as a child and Julie, who used to volunteer in a halfway house, met Adam, gave him a job, and let him live in the hotel.

The investigation is stymied when both Adam and Julie pass lie detector tests with flying colors. However, Reid looks into some things Adam said about having migraines and blackouts. He speculates Adam has Dissociative Identity Disorder and is acting alone. Meanwhile, a suspicious Julie finds evidence of the crimes in Adam’s room and confronts him, but she’s pushed off the roof. She survives long enough to tell Hotch that Adam called himself Amanda before attacking her.

The BAU races to find Amanda, who has gone to kill the stepfather who abused Adam. Reid is able to get her to release the stepfather and she’s going to kill herself, but Reid points out that will kill Adam too and Amanda exists to protect Adam. Amanda drops the knife, but not before telling Reid that she’s put Adam to sleep forever, for his own good. Later, Reid talks to Amanda in a psychiatric hospital and begs her to let Adam out but she refuses.

High Points

The opening quote, stated by Reid, was by Terry Pratchett. The awesomeness of that cannot be textually rendered.

Matthew Gray Gubler did a brilliant job conveying Reid’s connection with Adam and his desperation to help him, especially after his experience at the hands of the similarly-afflicted Tobias Henkel.

Although the DID “twist” was rather predictable, the way it unfolded was nicely done. I particularly liked the non-linear scenes with Reid questioning Amanda at the start, middle and end of the episode.

Low Points

The split between Adam and Amanda seemed more like schizophrenia than DID to me. Then again, I’m just an armchair psychiatrist.

Jackson Rathbone did a good job at playing Adam and Amanda, and he has the slight build to be believable as a woman, but his giant adam’s apple and perpetual stubble really stretched credulity.

Rossi, never one of my favorite characters, was particularly annoying in this episode, especially when he self-righteously lectured another hotel employee for not sharing an incident that happened with Adam. Yes, it was an important clue and yes, withholding information is bad. But there’s no need to be a smug twat about it.

There was not enough JJ and Prentiss in this episode.

The BAU is called out to a small town in Indiana after 31 people were killed in two separate fires set by an arsonist. The profile starts out with an insistence the unsub is a male, which is basically a red flag that a woman will be involved in some way. The team gets to town and start their investigation, with help from the fire chief, town doctor, and EMTs.

Meanwhile, Garcia is tasked with digging into all the residents’ dirty little secrets. In a small town, everyone knows everyone and anyone could be their unsub. The BAU is unhappy they have to conduct a witch hunt but there’s no getting around it. Garcia doesn’t like her assignment, because she prefers to deal with data, not people. She complains to Hotch that she’s not a profiler but he’s like, “Suck it up.”

While most of the townspeople are at the memorial service for those who died in the recent fire, another fire is set across town at a local bar. Five people die but one hangs on long enough to tell Hotch and Rossi that an unfamiliar man came in and moved around to several different seats. This gives the team a clue that the unsub was unfamiliar with the bar, which was built only a few years ago. It indicates he left town several years ago. Morgan also notes that the door was chained, which is new, and he tells the frustrated fire chief that the change in the unsub’s MO will help them catch him.

Garcia discovers that Tina, an EMT who was recently married to the now-deceased bar owner, lost her parents in a fire when she was young. Tina also had a brother, Tommy, and while she adjusted to the tragedy relatively well, Tommy was mentally unstable. He fixated on Tina as his entire world until a rumor started to spread that Tommy and Tina were too close, like in a kinky Dean and Sam Winchester kind of way. Garcia furiously condemns the town as she explains how Tommy was kicked out of school and beaten nearly to death by grown men, all based on a rumor. She says Tommy’s grandparents sent him to boarding school out of state and cut all ties between him and Tina.

After Tommy was kicked out boarding school and ended up in juvie for several years, then disappeared for a while until he showed up back in Indiana. The team heads off to Tina’s house but they’re too late; Tina has disappeared. Rossi says she’ll be safe unless she rejects Tommy, so they need to find the siblings as soon as possible.

Tommy takes Tina to the last place where they were together as kids, the setting of a high school dance. He keeps saying they can be together now and nobody will keep them apart anymore. Horrified, Tina realizes Tommy is responsible for all the fires, including the one that killed her husband. Prentiss, Hotch and Rossi arrive as Tina is trying to get away and Tommy holds her around the neck. He kicks over a gas can and lights a match, but Hotch urges him to look at Tina and remember how much he loves her. Tommy releases Tina and he’s taken into custody. I really thought Tommy was going to set himself on fire; predictable, maybe, but having him go quietly to prison is anti-climactic.

Back at the BAU offices, Garcia is packing away the case information when Hotch arrives. She thinks he’s going to scold her for overstepping her bounds when she called out the town officials for letting a rumor destroy Tommy’s life. She defensively says she believes in the good in people and being forced to see the flip side has totally harshed her buzz. Hotch blinks and says he was just coming to tell her what an excellent job she did. He adds that her positivity about humanity is what makes her special and he wouldn’t have it any other way.