Things have seemed eerily calm in the BAU world as of late, haven’t they? After the whiz-bang action-packed events of the season premiere, the show has been settling into a more typical setup for the past month or so. Case of the week, learn a little about new team member Tara Lewis, maybe an occasional reference to the events of the premiere here and there. In short, life’s looked pretty normal and uneventful for the team lately.
All of that changed dramatically this episode. Tara’s absent, but JJ’s back, and yet it looks like there may be more upheaval coming amongst the team over the coming months, thanks to some unsettling news involving two of the members.
But before we get into those dramatic pieces of news, we’ve got a case to discuss! Even in the midst of so much craziness, they’ve still got a job to do.
The Case:
Remember Rossi’s daughter Joy? We met her last season, learned her mom was Rossi’s second wife, she and Rossi agreed to keep in touch and get to know each other better. Well, she’s back this week. Unfortunately, it’s not to make a pleasant family visit.
Joy reveals to Rossi that she’s been working on an article for Esquire magazine about campus violence against women, and while researching her story, she made an unsettling discovery. In the past nine years, there have been four cases of college-age women going missing. The FBI hasn’t been called in to investigate, however, because all the cases happened in different states and had different MOs. Hard to make a connection as a result.
To make matters worse, a woman, Aasia, came to Joy recently alerting her to the fact that her sister Bahni has also gone missing. The police can’t do anything, because she hasn’t been gone for twenty-four hours yet. But Aasia, and Joy, have a gut feeling that something is very wrong. Cue Joy taking her case to Rossi, who takes the case to Hotch, and the team agrees to start an investigation.
The team soon learns that Bahni had considered dropping out of school recently after a test grade left her a little flustered…but her sister tells them that she’d changed her mind. An investigation of her dorm room reveals her purse and phone are still there, as are all her other things, so there’s no indication she’d planned to leave town. So far, not really a whole lot that indicates she’s in immediate danger. Rossi tries to prepare Joy for the possibility that this woman might just be taking some personal time for herself, and that there might not be much they can do.
“I have cried with four families, and I don’t want hers to be number five.”
Joy stands her ground, though. This case is personal for her, because one of the four previous women who went missing was a former NYU classmate of hers named Kathy. She disappeared in 2006, the year Joy graduated. Kathy’s body was never found, but the family had a service, which Joy attended out of respect. The family’s grief, as well as that of the families of the other missing women, has haunted her ever since. She’s got a gut feeling about this case, and she’s going to follow it.
She’s right to do so, too. Morgan and Reid learn through a talk with Bahni’s roommate that she and Bahni had gone to a party the other night that turned out to be kind of a dud, but they stayed because her roommate hoped some guy would show up. Eventually, Bahni decided to head home alone. Since the party was near campus, there’s bound to be some security cameras in the area, so Garcia’s sleuthing has the team checking out video footage along the path Bahni took to head home. To their horror, a man standing in the doorway of a building watches Bahni stumble by…and follows her. That’s enough to make this investigation official.
The man who’d followed Bahni turns out to be Sam Barnett, and after seeing his face on TV, he willingly offers to come down and set the record straight. He’s a cabbie who patrols campus, offering rides to drunk college students to keep them safe on the trip home. Sounds noble. He’d been on duty that night, and claimed he followed Bahni only to see if she was okay and needed a ride. When some guy intercepted his attempt to contact her however, and led Bahni away, he simply let it go and went back to work. His alibi checks out – there is footage of him taking a passenger home a little while later. Plus, Hotch theorizes, he wouldn’t have a body in the cab with passengers in there, to which I’d say that I wouldn’t entirely rule out such a possibility, especially if said victim is dead and therefore unable to make noise. The team’s seen how sick and twisted some people can be, after all. But all the same, that doesn’t look to be the case here.
When JJ tries to ask Sam a few more questions, however, he rapidly becomes very agitated and confrontational. He also makes a curious observation about JJ’s necklace at one point. Sam may not be involved in Bahni’s disappearance, and there’s nothing to hold him, but the team, and Joy, decide to keep an eye on him regardless.
Joy chooses to take that quite literally, too. She has Sam meet her that night at the spot where Bahni disappeared, in the hopes of getting him to jog his memory about what he observed. He starts to act even weirder the more she questions him, and when he walks down the alley where he’d seen Bahni last, Joy makes the mistake of following him. Sam suddenly gets aggressive with Joy, and makes reference to Kathy, implying he knew her. A scare tactic? Or is he telling the truth?
We don’t get to find out then, though, because thankfully, Rossi and JJ arrive, and Rossi is in full on protective dad mode, being none too gentle in slapping the cuffs on Sam. He also rightly scolds Joy for her risky behavior in following Sam alone, without alerting the team to her plans. Sure, she may have survived being in the midst of the tragedy in Darfur, and sure, this case means a lot to her, and bless her for her determination to get answers. She’s certainly not the first journalist who’s put themselves in risky situations to get their story, after all. But it’s hard not to be on Rossi’s side here all the same. Sam’s attempted assault on Joy further puts him under the spotlight, but the question still remains: Where is Bahni?
While the investigation’s been going on, we learn throughout the episode that Bahni is being held captive in the attic of a young man’s home. Initially he keeps her in a crate for a while, poking holes in it to give her air. How generous. Then, later, he chains her, via a leash, to the ceiling, and it’s hard not to wince and tense up when she tries to test how far she can move around before getting choked by the collar.
The unsub isn’t living alone, either. He lives with his father, an elderly, verbally abusive man, who responds to the news about Bahni’s disappearance by saying that she’s probably already dead under someone’s floorboards somewhere. Well. That’s a charming response. He has no clue Bahni’s in his home, though, and his son is desperately trying to keep it that way. It doesn’t take the man long to find out that his son is holding Bahni captive, however. He reacts angrily to this discovery…and suggests that the two of them need to get rid of her. Oh, dear. If you’re keeping count at home, that’s three unsubs or potential unsubs we’re dealing with now.
The father also reminds his son at one point that “we don’t record what we’re about to do”. Considering the revelation that he abused his wife (who committed suicide) and son for years, as well as that dark he’d made about the whereabouts of Bahni, that comment brings up a lot of really uncomfortable questions that I’m not sure I want the answers to.
The son doesn’t want to let Bahni go, though. Apparently he’d obsessed over her for a while, seeing her whenever he’d deliver Chinese food to her through where he worked, and wanted to “keep her” for himself. For what purposes, exactly, I don’t even want to know. There’s a scuffle between him and his dad as a result, and he winds up killing his father in the process. Fortunately, the team arrives then, and takes him into custody. Bahni’s safe, and happily reunited with her sister a short time later.
Oh, our unsub’s name, by the way? Tom Larson. The team was able to discover information about him (complete with juvenile criminal record) through a cross-search they were able to make thanks to Sam. Apparently he and Tom knew each other, via the fact that they both worked in and near campus. They also learn that Sam dropped out of NYU in 2006, aka, the same year Kathy went missing. Further investigation reveals that he is the man responsible for the disappearances, and murders, of the other women at that college. It’s also revealed that he keeps their necklaces as trophies, which explains his sudden interest in JJ’s necklace during the interrogation.
I felt like the use of three unsubs seemed a little much in a lot of ways throughout this episode. It made the investigation feel a little choppy and disjointed in some ways. I think the story might’ve worked better if Tom and Sam were some sort of duo, or, since that sort of case was done not long ago, perhaps had them being competing abductors or killers a la “The Last Word”. Either that, or the episode could’ve just stuck with one man being responsible for all these crimes. I also felt like we didn’t get too much explanation of why Tom or Sam committed these crimes. Yeah, Tom was abused, and that affected him, but what were his specific plans with Bahni? Was he recreating his father’s abuse towards him? Or the abuse his mother suffered? They never really said.
And Sam’s crimes basically came down to, “He’s a creep”. In real life, a lot of the time, that’s really all the more explanation that most criminals give, mind, but considering the concept of this show, it would’ve been interesting to learn a little more about why Sam and Tom did the things they did. And it would’ve been good to see the show explore their potential connection a little more, beyond the fact that they worked in the same area. I feel like there’s a lot more backstory there that never really got delved into much.
Also, much as I liked seeing Joy working alongside the team…wouldn’t their working together technically count as a conflict of interest in some ways, on both ends?
Frankly, it felt like the case seemed to be a secondary thought in general this week. Especially when we consider the jaw-dropping and notable events happening among the team.
The Dirty Dozen:
“You can’t stop them, Derek. No one can stop them.”
We return this week to a storyline that had been set up in the season premiere, and touched on a little further in the third episode. To briefly recap: In “The Job”, the team caught the head of an underground gang tied to a network called Silk Road. Silk Road has been involved in a lot of shady criminal business, some of it violent.
After being captured by the BAU, the leader of the gang, Giuseppe Montolo, went to prison, but not before warning Morgan about a group of twelve people known as the “Dirty Dozen” that his gang intended to track down and kill. Since then, Morgan has vowed he and his teammates will take down this group, but up to now, Montolo’s refused to talk.
Until this episode, that is. Why Montolo decides he wants to talk now is never made clear, but Morgan, rightly wary of the man’s intentions, informs him that just because he shares information doesn’t mean he won’t still face further criminal prosecution. Montolo accepts this, and begins to share what he knows. First off, there are four other people in this gang. Second, this “Dirty Dozen” is not a “who”. It’s a “what”. Interesting…
Just as he’s about to explain further, however, Montolo begins coughing violently and collapses. Turns out he’d been poisoned, by a prison guard, no less…and he dies (as does the guard who poisoned him – he’s shot in his car an hour later). Obviously, this frustrates Morgan greatly. Hard to track this group without a witness or lead, after all.
The most shocking twist comes at the end of the episode, however, when Morgan goes looking around the offices for Garcia. After a little searching, he finally finds her in his office. Alone. Sitting in the dark. She wants him to leave the room dark, too, because, she confesses, she’s scared. Very scared.
Why? Because after Montolo’s death, and after the latest tidbit of information they were able to squeeze out of him, Garcia, at Hotch’s request, went back and revisited all the information she’d gathered thus far. She used a botnet system (botnet being a series of computers or servers) to track the gang that Montolo said he worked alongside. According to her, this is supposed to be a safe means to search and track these sorts of online risks.
Key words there, of course, being “supposed to be”.
As she investigates, she makes two horrifying revelations. The first? Montolo’s gang has a few computer tricks of their own, and they’ve been keeping an eye on her, and know she’s watching them.
The second? She realizes the exact number of just how many servers there are in the botnet system. Anyone want to take a guess? Yep. Twelve.
In other words, Garcia, or technically, Garcia’s botnet system, is the “Dirty Dozen” Montolo kept referencing. She, and the team by default, is the gang’s target. Ka-boom.
Needless to say, Morgan is shocked by this news, and vows, of course, to do any and everything he can to protect his beloved “Baby Girl”. From the look on his face as he tries to comfort her, he means it. Have I mentioned I’m nervous about how this storyline’s going to play out?
On another note, considering this is, like, the third or fourth time Garcia’s computer snooping has led to the bad guys targeting her and the team, I’m thinking the FBI really needs to do some serious beefing up of their technological security. As should Garcia.
Meanwhile, on the personal front…:
The bombshell about Garcia isn’t the only upsetting news we receive this week, either, unfortunately. While working the case, JJ notices Reid getting a call that he refuses to answer. After a little persuasion on her end, Reid reveals the heartbreaking news that his mom is not doing very well, and hasn’t been well for a few weeks now. The staff at Bennington keeps trying to find a proper combination of meds to help take care of her, but so far none of it has taken. In true Reid fashion, though, he kept quiet about the problems with his mom because he didn’t want to be a bother (to which JJ sweetly reassures him he could never be such a thing, which, aw).
At the end of the episode, JJ encourages Reid to call his mom, and much to my immense relief, she answers. After asking how she’s doing, Reid then asks her if he can come home and visit her for a little while. It’s a bittersweet ending, but mother and son are in touch, so I’ll take what I can get for the moment. This is the point, however, where I begin hoping and pleading that nothing bad happens to Diana, and that Reid’s visit home winds up being a good one in the long run. Lord knows he doesn’t need to lose any more people he cares about.
Elsewhere, Joy reveals to Rossi yet another reason their missing person investigation, and Kathy’s disappearance, affected her so much. Turns out she too was attacked at NYU, a mere week before Kathy went missing. She didn’t report it, though, out of fear of her accusation not being believed or taken seriously, and deeply came to regret her silence when Kathy disappeared. Rossi’s visibly upset at this news about such a dark part of his daughter’s past, but he reassures her after the case wraps up that she can talk to him about anything, good or bad, in her life, and reminds her he’ll always be there for her.
He’s also pleasantly surprised to learn that Joy goes by “Joy Rossi” for her article byline. She never got to use that last name growing up, so she reasoned now would be a good time to start, and Rossi plans to subscribe to Esquire so he can read every new article she puts out. A very touching, heartwarming moment between father and daughter. It was fun to see Joy back, even if she returned under less than ideal circumstances. Hopefully the two of them will get to have some more pleasant interactions in the future.
And in the continued interest of trying to end on a much happier note, JJ’s back! And the celebration and reception she gets from her teammates as they welcome her return is utterly adorable. Hugs are shared all around, and it’s utterly impossible not to smile at the particularly enthusiastic hug she gets from Reid. His gift to her was incredibly sweet as well: a set of encyclopedias he himself used to own, in the hopes of passing on a love of “old-fashioned research” and reading. We also learn from JJ that Michael is eager to see his godfather again, because apparently he reacted very positively to Reid when he first visited him, “smiling and kicking his little legs”. The happy look on Reid’s face at this news and memory is priceless and oh, my god, the show is killing me with all of this cuteness.
Meanwhile, Garcia has decorated JJ’s desk with photos of both her children, and can we talk about how precious the photo of Henry holding his baby brother is? Rossi was kind enough to think of Will, picking up a bottle of his favorite cologne, and Morgan is his ever-charming self, being very complimentary of how good JJ looks. All in all, it’s a lovely moment where the entire team is smiling and life is good. If only things had stayed that way.
What did you think of this week’s episode? What do you think this latest revelation regarding Garcia means for the Dirty Dozen case, as well as the team, going forward? How do you think Reid’s visit home, if he does indeed take it, will pan out? Did you enjoy seeing Joy again? Was the use of multiple unsubs a good twist in this week’s case? Did you even care about the case of the week at all, given everything happening with the team? Share your thoughts in the comments!
