A guy brings flowers to a woman's home.
He's disappointed when he sees sheets and pillow laid out on the
couch. I guess this is a husband trying to apologize for something?
Then he notices smoke coming from the stove in the kitchen, but
instead of turning off the oven, he opens it up and pulls the burned
item out with his bare hands, which will only serve to spread more
smoke everywhere. Maybe it's just a bad reflex?
Then, in the dining room, he finds
Muriel, laid out on the floor, dead, with a rose clutched in her
teeth!
Hey, remember how Joe has a daughter,
and an ex-wife he was dating again? Yeah, the show doesn't! He
appears in Emily's office and asks to take a few days off so that he
can romance this third ex-wife, the blackjack dealer from Vegas!
Seriously, Joe, you're the worst.
We get a rundown on the case - Muriel
was the second victim of the 'stab in the back, rose in the mouth'
killer! It's not a great name. Also, the thing that was burning in
the oven was a carton of cigarettes. Weird. The team concludes that
the victims probably knew their killer, since neither house was
broken into! Emily announces that they have to leave immediately,
since two bodies have been dropped in two nights, so the spree is
already on!
Then we check in on the killer, who
makes a rum and coke and pours it onto a woman's face, before
dropping a rose on her!
On the plan, we get some details about
the victims - one was young, rich, and a drunk, and the other was a
middle-aged married teacher! But both had relationship problems, and
the rose is generally a love thing, so maybe that's the key linking
them?
Then it's over to Joe, who's meeting
Crystal (that's the dealer's name) in a park in DC! We learn that her
daughter is getting married, and the show mentions that he and Hayden
have broken up. What the hell happened there, show? Her last
appearance was the two of them admitting to their daughter that they
were dating. Did the actor get a job?
Joe gets invited to the wedding, and he
invites Crystal and her daughter Portia to visit the FBI! Damn, she's
got a daughter... that lady better not get attacked by a serial
killer like his real daughter did.
At the office, Matt observes that the
tango can involve a rose clutched between the teeth. Reid corrects
him, pointing out that the authentic tango doesn't involve flowers,
that's just something from a movie. Of course, that's completely
irrelevant, since it doesn't matter what Argentinians do, unless your
subject is Argentinian. The rose/tango association is hard-wired into
the cultural subconscious, in the same way that rabbits eating
carrots is. Neither are accurate, but most people think they are, and
people's beliefs are what's important here.
Emily comes in and announces that
they've found the third victim! Matt gets his first 'what about the
cooling off period' of the show, suggesting that he doesn't know that
all serial killers are spree killers in this world.
The ME mentions Derek when they go to
see her, so I guess she's been on the show before? We also learn that
the victims had extra, strange signature elements to their murders
beyond the rose. The first victim had a necklace pulled tight around
her neck after death, and the second had her face shoved into the
oven while the cigarettes were burning!
Reid and JJ go to the newest crime
scene, where it seems like the bonus signature piece was the drink,
since the killer brought the alcohol with him. The woman was a
church-going nurse with no relationships that anyone knows about,
which breaks that apparent link. Just how religious was she? Check
out her bookshelf:
Yup, that's a copy of Nikolae: Rise of
the Antichrist, of the Left Behind books! So a little on the crazy
side, religiously-speaking. She also had a ton of romance novels, so
maybe this was related to a suitor of some kind, after all?
Joe takes the ladies to meet Garcia,
and then bonds with his future ex-stepson-in-law over shooting guns!
Then when Garcia arrives and everyone's laughing, the guy immediately
gets cruel and possessive! So, I guess he's just the worst, right?
Joe notices, while everyone else pretends not to. He's instantly
troubled - but will he have Garcia run a background check on the guy?
Back at the police station, we learn
that the killer brought the necklace to the first crime scene - so
each additional element is something the the killer is fetishizing
along with the crime. Hopefully they'll find a link before too many
more people die!
I'm kidding, of course, this is
Criminal Minds - the next scene is a woman being drowned with a rose
in her mouth.
Ready for things to get ridiculous?
Aisha figures out the killer's theme when she sees three coins in the
fountain at the newest victim's home. All of the deaths are themed
around famous, old-timey songs! Three coins in the fountain, rum and
coca-cola, smoke gets in your eyes, dime store necklace. And all of
the women were into old-timey music as well. That's the connection
they've been looking for!
The team gives out the profile, but of
course the cops knowing what the audience already does won't help
anything, but it's interesting that they make one of their classic
'based on nothing' age guesses, specifically that the killer is in
his 40s or 50s. This can't be based on the music, because it's from
the 30s-50s, 15-35 years before the killer was born, , and the
victims have ranged from 20s-40s. No, as usual, they want the team to
guess right about something, so they just assign them a guess they
couldn't possibly have come up with on their own.
As predicted, Joe has Garcia do a
background check on the creepy, abusive fiancee! Not only the joke
thing, but he got furious when, down at the gun range, a woman was a
better shot than he was! The guy is a ticking time bomb, is Joe's
point.
Reid, JJ, and Emily talk through what
the women have in common. One was an insomniac, one was a night
person, and another worked nights! Could they all have met him out
late somewhere? They keep talking about this like it was obviously a
courtship and the women invited the man they had romantic feelings
towards into their homes - but victim #2 was killed while her husband
was out for just a couple of minutes, and she was expecting him home.
Why would she let a guy inside the house in that circumstance?
That night, we see Jason Gedrick (of
Iron Eagle fame!) arguing with his girlfriend as they walk down the
street! As he's breaking up with his phone rings, and she assumes
that it's his wife calling! But is it really his next victim? Or is
she?!
Matt, Aisha, and Reid try to figure out
how all of these women could have this music in common, and they come
to the conclusion that it can't be just purchasing music, since you
don't do that at night. Could they all be listening to it? Could the
killer be a DJ who plays classic songs for lonely ladies?
Of course he can! We see Jason arrive
at the radio station and start his shift - his wife is waiting for
him there! She talks about their plan to renew their vows - could
this be the stressor that led him to start killing? It would be weird
if it was!
We find out that the killer's show is
an all-night classic music revue - damn, then he must be cutting it
close with all of those murders!
At the police station, they lament that
there's no radio station that just plays classic jazz and big band
music. That doesn't really matter, though, since you only care about
late-night programming. They also mention that Garcia is going to
check to see if the dead woman all called the same numbers on their
phone. Shouldn't that have been the first thing they did?
They don't come up with any leads that
way - it's weird that they haven't considered just going to the
victims' computers and radios. If they were big fans of a station, it
would be referenced in their social media, as well as bookmarked on
their computers, or the radios would be set to the correct spot on
the dial. Eric points out that it's weird that the guy is killing 1-2
women a day when he's obviously spent months setting them up for the
crime. Could he have some deadline creeping up on him that
necessitates him getting rid of these women now?
That would be a bad sign for the
girlfriend he just broke up with!
At dinner, Joe gets a call from Garcia
- the creep is a con man who gets engaged to rich ladies, beats them
up, then takes payoffs from their rich families to go away! What a
loathsome individual! What is Joe going to do about it?
Let's check in with the killer! His
girlfriend calls in, threatening to tell his wife about the affair if
he doesn't play 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'. Jason tells the
engineer to play random music for the next hour while he heads off
and kills her! He doesn't say that last part, obvs.
More news about the killer's MO - he
uses roses that he grew himself! Also, the nurse called his call-in
show from the houses that she worked at overnight, so now they've got
a solid connection to Jason!
They talk to the producer, who tells
them about the requests for all of the themed murder songs, and then
lets them know that Jason just left to see his girlfriend. They rush
over there, but then it's time for a twist! Jason is the one who's
been murdered, I guess by his jealous wife? Or maybe the girlfriend,
who's gone missing? Either one would make sense, what with the vow
renewal coming up. The wife is more likely, since the girlfriend
probably wouldn't have posed Jason so grotesquely in her own home.
Joe confronts Portia with the news
about the creep, and she storms off, upset! For some reason Crystal
and Joe don't more gravely warn her about the situation. I'd be
seriously worried that she'll run off to confront the fiancee about
all of this dirt, and isn't it incredibly dangerous to accuse a
violent conman of cheating you? Wasn't that what drove Victor Webster
to kill people like 9 seasons ago?
Oh, and they discover that the wife is,
in fact, the killer. She has a rose garden, and was annoyed about a
diamond necklace being given to the girlfriend! Now the team just has
to track her down! They talk about how Jason was only cheating on his
wife with one person, and the wife is just a psycho who attacked
people who sent Jason fan mail! Except, you know, that flies
completely in the face of all of the crime scenes. How did a stranger
get into all of these people's homes with no trouble at all? Did she
say that she works on the show and was there in response to their fan
mail? Isn't that an incredibly strange thing to have happen? Like, if
Jason Gedrick shows up at their door, I'd believe they were so
surprised that they might open it – but some random woman? That's a
stretch.
The team rushes to where the couple's
wedding vow renewal was supposed to take place, and try to stop her
from killing herself! They manage to do it!
THE END
The creep goes to visit Joe at his
house, saying that he's still going to marry Portia. Joe nearly
breaks his wrist, and then says that if he tries to go through with
the marriage, he'll have the creep killed. Later Crystal drops by to
talk about the situation, and finds Joe playing solitaire. She
comments about how you can do that on a phone, and he says her
prefers the feel of cards. Except we know that Joe prefers to unwind
with video games. Weird that the show seems to have forgotten that.
Crystal talks around asking if Joe
ruined the wedding, and Joe doesn't confirm or deny the situation. I
guess they're getting back together?
1 - Was profiling in any way helpful in
solving the crime?
Nope! They found a thing that all of
the victims had in common, then matched his wife to the roses!
2 - Could the crime have been solved
just as easily using conventional police methods given the known
facts of the case?
Yes, and much faster than the team did!
So, on a scale of 1 (Dirty Harry) to 10
(Tony Hill), How Useful Was Profiling in Solving the Crime?
1/10 - It's weird that the episode's
need to have a twist completely invalidates the entire premise of the
mystery. If Jason had been sleeping with the victims, then there
would be a reason for them to keep that on the down-low and never
write about him on social media or anything like that. It would also
have explained how he got into their houses to kill them.
But they were just fans. Fans of an
internet DJ.
That means that they'd have talked
about him online, to their friends, there would be records of them
calling in requests, and his radio station would have been bookmarked
on all of their computers. And the killer would have no non-violent
way to get into their houses. Once you had two victims - three at the
absolute most - the connection would have been impossible to miss.
Then they'd have talked to Jason, found out he had an alibi, and
immediately arrested his wife.
The show needed a twist, though, so
everyone's behaviour needed to make no sense in order for it to be
possible. Terrible work this week, show.
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