Month: October 2023

Ok so I have this big paper due for my CAS class, i need to give it my undivided attention so i thought it would be only right to take a little break for posting on her for a little bit. I thoroughly enjoyed giving you guys the rundown of some of my favorite episodes. This isn’t even the end, just think of it like the end of a season to a show and the next one is in the making, if that makes sense.

I hope you took away something from my blog, i don’t even know what you would take away other than whether you think you would like the show Criminal Minds or not. Maybe you liked the detailed stories and gruesome cases. Maybe you didn’t like it at all and think the whole show is weird as hell and will leave you with nightmares, and i don’t blame you if that was your take.

From a different perspective however, not only for you guys but me too… i realized the hidden value of writing about episodes. It was so fun to me to relive it like i was explaining the episode to a friend, because i do love the show, it didn’t feel like a chore.

If you have read any part of this post or any previous posts, i thank you for your time!!!

 

Alright so i’m excited for this post, it is one of my favorite episodes that messed with my mind the most. Not only is it one of my favorite but my parents also love this episode. I remember watching it with them for the first time while the pandemic was happening and we were glued to our couch binge watching Criminal Minds.

We begin this episode with the camera opening up at ship dock late at night in Baltimore, Maryland. We are introduced to Ailyah Nadir and her two children Dalia and Faris, they are bing brought to an unknown location by a man of the name John Summers. As Summers returns home, he is attacked and tortured by unknown faces…Summer says “You’ll never find her” and then “I knew it had to be you” before being murdered. We arent even that far into the episode and the FBI already staged summers death to look like a suicide as they left a note that said “I AM A PATRIOT. LONG LIVE FREEDOM. GOD BLESS AMERICA.” like what???

Cut to the Quantico headquarters, we meet agents Mandy and Bruno Hawks. Mandy and Hawks served in the military together and we learn that Summers was also in the CIA and worked for Hawks in his counterintelligence unit. We learn that another counterintelligence agent requested a psych evaluation on John Summers. Gideon completed this evaluation. Bruno tells Mandy that he doesn’t know how requested the evaluation, but he believes it was requested by a mole in their unit who is working for the same terrorist organization that Ailyah Nadir was running from. This mole is the unsub.

Ailyah Nadir turns out to be one of the CIAs informants Hotch tells us, and its now the teams mission to save her. Considering  the fact they think one of the agents is the mole, the BAU locked down the whole unit so that they can go in and profile them all. We learn that Ailyah has been beaten and sexually assaulted by her husband Hassan Nadir who worked as a diplomat for the Saudi government and helps carry out major terrorist operations. Since then then Ailyah has turned informant on her husband and Summers smuggled Ailyah and her two children to the US. But the CIA made it look like Ailyah and her children died in a car accident that resulted in their bodies too disfigured to identify. The issue at hand however is that whoever the mole is has filled in Hassan on everything and now Hassan is in the states.

Cut to us being shown surveillance footage of Gideon meeting with Summers for his psych eval, three days before Summers was murdered. Summer tells Gideon that he had narrowed down the mole list to 4 possible candidates. The four being; Bruno Hawks, Gina Sanchez, Olivia Hopkins and Kruger Spence. Those four also happen to be the Supervisors of the CIA, meaning they were Summers bosses. The team begins to profile each of them.

Ailyah and her children are still in the shipping container at the dock, they just ran out of water and their lantern just died…things are starting to not be promising. Reid is assigned to work with Kruger. Morgan was assigned to Gina, Elle was assigned to work with Olivia and Gideon profiles Bruno. Then of course Ailyah leaves the shipping container to go find her children water and tells them to not move, but just at that time the unsub seems to hack into the BAUs feed and also knows where Ailyah is. Ailyah returns to find Hassan has her children. Gina and Morgan go to the ship yard to try and find Ailyah, Reid uses the drone satellite system to help them find the shipping container. They find the Nadir family and as they begin to arrest Hassan, they realize that he basically being arrested on international waters since the container hasn’t passed through customs yet. They request to bring back Hassan into custody but weirdly enough Bruno wants to sweep everything under the rug. He asks Gina to kill the whole Nadir family and the visual feed is cut and all we hear is gunshots. The feed comes back on and we learn that the Ailyah and her children are safe, and that the mole and unsub was Bruno who was also the one shot.

And get this..all of this was because Bruno was being paid 20 million dollars by Hassan to find Ailyah.

Ok so I though for the sake of the last post not becoming overwhelming since this episode has sooooo many details.

So lets pick it back up where I left off, Charlies mom Sarah has been invited to help the team finding Aimee by JJ but only if she stops drinking which she agrees to. Hotch and Parentis are visiting the crime scene and realize that there have to of been three people involved in the abduction, considering one grabbed Aimee, one is yelling causing a distraction and another is driving the getaway car, but all they want to know is how do they keep the children hidden. Over the past 10 years, there have been 12 children abducted in the same exact way, Sarah is introduced to the team and expresses that she already knows some of the parents who had their child abducted through a support group. This is where she also shared that she is certain she saw her son Charlie a couple of years ago. she saw him grown across the street and when she called for him, a van passed and he was gone. The parents of Aimee and some parents from Sarahs support group are brought to the BAU trying to get information. Sarah explains her situation with Charlie giving the parents hope that their children could still be alive.

Cut to Aimee and the other girl, she is telling Aimee that there are 4 of them at this house and that the other kids are at a better place.

Back at the BAU, Sarah shows Aimees parents a picture of Charlie, which leads to Aimees mom remembering that she saw a kid that looked like him at the festival and she starts to yell at Sarah. Aimee back at the house is getting her hair brushed by the other girl until the creepy lady comes in and kicks the other girl and sits next to Aimee on the bed.

In her office, Garcia starts doing some research and finds that 107 families have been visited by social services in the past year but they have to narrow that list down. She gets it down to 23 families considering the facts that the family is probably single income household since one parent has to stay at the house watching the kids. Hotch comes up with a genius idea..obviously cause hes actually the best..he suggests to take a piece of Aimee’s clothing with them for the search dogs.

Cut to Parentis and Morgan and the first house and a questionable man opens the front door, Morgan notices a picture behind him including all the children that are missing. Parentis and Morgan are sure this is the house, they continue chatting it up with him and the camera cuts to the basement of the house where the lady is covering Aimee’s mouth telling her to stay quiet or she’ll be punished. Back upstairs the man says he could “get her back here” referring to his wife which is the creepy lady in the basement to which Morgan tells him to call her. Parentis stepped outside to call Hotch and bring in a warrant and the rest of the team, they identify the man as Roger Roycewood, who is most definitely already onto them. The rest of the BAU rolls up..they’re so cool ugh…and they start searching the house, JJ finds a bookshelf which turned out to be a hidden door to the basement.

Garcia does some digging into Roger and finds out his wifes name is Anita. The Anita that is currently in the basement with all the children leading them to the crematorium and asking Charlie to put Aimee in the makeshift coffin. The children realize what is about to happen and Anita starts trying to comfort the other girl so she doesn’t cause Aimee to start breaking down. Its such a sick and twisted plot. But while that is happening Charlie grabs a gun from Anitas purse and points it at Anita yelling “let her go”, Charlie slays the day and shoots Anita right in the chest and takes Aimee and the other girl out. The team goes to arrest Roger and find him hung in the bathroom, it was a disturbing scene. The team takes the children back to the office, the parents are nervous, especially Sarah who thinks Charlie might not remember her. But of course for the happy ending, he does remember her, that part made me tear up it was so sad. Aimee reunites with her parents and so does the other girl.

 

Ok I think criminal minds has a thing for making episodes that involve children the most gut wrenching or maybe it is literally just because kids are involved in the case resulting is more emotion.

This episode called Mosely Lance hurt my heart and in a way felt like something that could very well happen in real life, i think of the Turpin Family scandal.

We start this episode attending an outdoor festival in VA, theres a ferris wheel and children riding ponies. But really quickly all the wholesomeness of the scenes end when we hear a mother screaming for her daughter Lindsay. But of course one missing kid is not enough because when a mother turns to look at the other lady screaming, she turns back and her daughter Aimee is also missing. Rossi and Hotch get right to this case, we quickly discover that the lady yelling Lindsay is a ploy to get other people to turn around and unfortunately the unsub uses that time to kidnap a child. Hotch and Rossi start talking to Aimees mom, Mrs.Lynch.

Cut back to the rest of the team at the office and a strange lady walks in and asks to talk to JJ, JJ knows this lady as she continues to explain to Perentis that the lady is named Sarah Hillridge who lost her son Charlie 8 years ago and is certain that the same person who took Charlie took Aimee. The scene opens back up on Aimee, she is in a dark room and the only source of light is through a hole in the wall which we hear a kind voice of another kid is talking to her through it, but before Aimeee could reply a lady bursts in yelling and beats the other kid.

Back at the office JJ is concerned because if Sarah is right, the unsub has had a year to perfect their kidnapping plans and they don’t know what they could be doing with Aimee. We quickly go back to the house where the lady who was yelling earlier is cleaning the corpse of a young kid…i know this is really messed up it gets me every-time…but she’s cleaning the corpse and then puts it in a box and and lights it on fire essentially cremating the body. DONT WORRY IT IS NOT AIMEE! A boy approaches Aimee in her dark room and expresses that he is her brother and he goes by the name David and he takes Polaroid’s of her.

Cut to JJ explaining to the team that she believes Sarah because the same distraction was used one her when her son Charlie was kidnapped. But then the question of why Charlie has not been found is raised considering the facts they bring up about how kidnappers will usually dispose of the body, so they assume that Charlie serves a different purpose to the abductors.  Sarah makes a promise to the team (mostly JJ) that she will stop drinking and smoking if she wants to help find Aimee and maybe Charlie.

This episode was all types of emotions. Like I did not know the next move of any character at any point in the episode.

Begins at a mall in Potomac Mills, VA, where a lady is running around the mall while an announcement is blaring over the speakers. The announcement says “Paging Katie Jacobs. Please report to security immediately”, then followed by 911 call made by Susan Jobs expressing that her niece is gone and her parents are still looking for her. Katie is the niece, she’s only 6 years old.

Ok, one thing about criminal minds is that there is no limit of characters they throw into every episode. Sometimes its hard to keep up, like this episode has 2 families involved. So let me simplify it real quick, theres Katie Jacobs who is the 6 year old missing, her parents Richard and Beth Jacobs. Then theres Susan Jacobs whos Katies aunt and her husband Paul who have a son named Jeremy. Fun fact, Richard and Paul are both brothers in the show and in real life!!

Day start off with all of them having a trip to the mall, Beth and Richard go off looking for something leaving Katie with Susan and Paul. Susan and Paul then leave Katie with Jeremy at an arcade where Jeremy looses her. Due to the fact that a week before there was another missing case from the mall where the victim ended up being killed, Katies needed to be found rapidly. BAU of course was then called in. The mall is put into lockdown, and a thorough search of the mall would take 3 hours. SWAT is called in, and the team continues to talk to the families, each member separately. Katies parents becoming angry not understanding why the team is questioning them and not searching for their daughter. Susan and Paul start feeling guilty for leaving Katie with Jeremy.

Reid and Morgan seperate and go search Katies house, they find that Katie wets the bed and all her dolls were destroyed which lead them to believe she is being molested. At this point they think its by her father so Morgan calls Hotch to tell him. Hotch then says that its not her father, its either Paul or Jeremy. Hotch goes over to Paul and starts asking him questions about Jeremy and something is off when Paul didn’t know any of the answers to questions about his own son. Things are not adding up hmm

Parentis then remembers that Susan left Katie with Jeremy because she went to get an engraved lighter for Paul as a gift, but on a stressful day where his niece is missing…Paul has not lit up one cigarette. Susan also earlier that she used to work in retail meaning she used to work at this mall. DING DING Susan is the unsub, Susan kidnapped her own niece because she found out Paul was abusing Katie and the sick mind of Susan became jealous. Susan tells them where Katie is which was a janitors closet in the basement.

The episode leaves us off with Jeremy scared now that his parents are being arrested but Hotch affirming him that he’ll be ok.

(unsubpodcast.com)

The team is now tasked with working alongside the Organized Crime Unit to solve a case that appears to be a mob hit. However, the BAU profilers are led to believe that a serial killer is behind the crime, a belief that escalates after one of the agents assigned to the case goes missing.

Ok so it starts off at a bar, two men leaving. Their names are Jim and Freddy who go and stop by a cop that somehow knows Jim. Turns out this cop had arrested Jim a few years back. Jim then goes to his house and Freddy wen to his which was his aunt Helens house that he was spending the night at. A few hours pass and the neighbor is banging on Aunt Helens front door. The neighbor hears loud band music coming from Helens house, they try opening the doorknob and realized that it is covered in blood. The door then opened and Jim comes out of the house knocking the neighbor standing in front of him over.

The team is called in the next morning. At the crime scene there were two victims, named William and Helen Dimarco (meaning the aunt and her husband). The neighbor being the witness said that she saw a “20-40 year old white male fleeing the scene”. Helen was found tied to a chair with cuts all over her and her husband William was found tied up in the shower with the same torture wounds. Then this is where my jaw dropped, like actual chills. Gideon made the discovery that there was a third victim, it wasn’t just Helen and Will. Their body was MIA, meaning that the unsub knew what they were doing, a professional killer perhaps. The cameras move two blocks down from the crime scene where the third victims body parts are being found in trashcans. Sorry, I was not kidding when I said this show does not hold back. oh and if any of you are wondering where Freddy is during all of this, well the third victim identity was revealed and it was Freddy.

Reid and Garcia start diving into Freddys connections, people that he knows and what their backgrounds are. They stumble on James Baker which turns out to be Jimmy who has previously been arrested for “attempted murder, armed robbery, petty theft, burglary, narcotic sales, and rape”. They rushed to Jimmys apartment and it was empty besides a glock 19 they found in the kitchen wall, they continue to look for him but found out that he is an undercover cop. Now a lot of people quickly enter into this situation in order for the team to find the unsub.

So Jim kept repeating a name, the name was Josh which the team identified as Special Agent Josh Cramer. They then tracked Cramer down and he agreed to work with them. Cramer knew Jim through a man named Michael Russo who had Jimmy working for him. Russo is then brought into the picture and asked to look at the crime scene, and based on the torture wounds on the victims. Russo gave Hotch a name…”vinny”.

Vinny was the nickname of Vincent Perrota, who is also the unsub. As they are looking for him, Vinny attacks Hotch and the BAU captures him. They search everything of his and find tapes he had of his victims being tortured, including Helen and William. The team gives him in and head back to Quantico, no jet this time just drivin!!