- The team hunts a suspect who impregnates young women and has them give birth before murdering them.
- Kristie Taylor is the third and latest victim of a sexual sadistic serial killer in New Mexico. All the victims have been troubled teen-aged blond females, who have been missing for years and that suddenly turn up dead. They have been asphyxiated with ligature marks consistent with being chained. The other connection that the three have is that they all looked healthier just prior to death than when they went missing, and have all shown signs of just having given birth, killed minutes after delivery. The BAU's initial analysis is that whatever his purpose for the babies is the key to finding the unsub. They suspect that the babies are being sold or being placed in the adoption system, as blond haired, blue eyed babies are those in highest demand. But their profile of the unsub changes when they find one of the babies. They also determine what specifically the unsub is looking for in the babies he keeps. On this case, Hotch is especially hard on Morgan, seemingly having to do with a private meeting between Hotch and Section Chief Strauss.—Huggo
- A brief synopsis for this week's episode: "The team hunts a suspect who impregnates young women and has them give birth before murdering them."
Sigh.
Anyone still up for a full summary? OK, then. Here we go ...
We open with a woman giving birth. She is SCREAMING. There is lots of blood. "Stop!" she yells. "Oh my God stop!" Then we hear a baby crying. She is handed her newborn. Just then, the camera pulls back to reveal that mom and baby are in a cage. "Give me the baby," says a creepy male voice. He takes the kid upstairs.
The birthing room is in the guy's basement. Great.
Back at the office, Hotch gets a visit from Chief Strauss. Something is up. "Is everything OK?" JJ asks. Judging by the look on Hotch's face -- no, definitely not. The team is then briefed: multiple victims in their teens. They take a look at the latest dead girl, a runway. "She was asphyxiated," Reid says. "He hangs on to them for awhile ... two average of two years between abducting them and killing them." Also: the unsub kills the women minutes after they give birth.
We see a dimly lit street and a young blond woman being led somewhere with promises of some good stuff. She is stoned and can barely walk. Then someone puts a plastic bag over her head- just long enough to knock her out. The unsub pays the delivery boy.
On the plane ride to the crime scene, Hotch points out that none of the babies have been found. Emily points out that the newborns might be means to an end. Perhaps the infants are the ones who the unsub is "exploiting." Later, Hotch and Rossi visit the coroner. They discover that the last victim had been well cared for following her abduction, especially after becoming pregnant. "What kind of sexual sadist gives his victims prenatal drugs?" Hotch asks. Rossi suggests that the killer is keeping the kids.
Rossi and JJ then head to the local adoption agency. The official mentions that all adopted babies are tested for pre-existing conditions. Rossi suggests getting baby DNA from the dead bodies and running it through the system. Good idea. Sort of. It will require digging up the first victim, as the other two dead women don't have any baby DNA on them. So JJ calls in the first victim's parents and requests permission. The parents, after hearing that their daughter might have a child, quickly agree. But running the DNA through the system doesn't match with children adopted in the New Mexico area. "This unsub could be selling babies just not through the system," Rossi notes.
A short time later, Hotch takes Derek to task for a supposedly faulty profile. Derek is confused. Why is his boss being such a hard-driving jerk? "Rewrite it," Hotch barks. Just then, JJ enters with good news: Garcia has found a DNA match in Arizona! The four-year-old child of the unsub's first known victim has been discovered. Turns out the child was dropped off anonymously at a church before being legally adopted. "So the unsub has the opportunity to make money off this infant, but doesn't, Rossi wonders." Even more odd: the killer then goes to the trouble of dropping the baby off at a safe location. "It's the action of a caretaker," Reid says. Could the unsub be a women? Unlikely. Maybe a husband-and-wife team? Bingo.
Now there's a problem. The parents of the first known victim want custody of their grand-daughter and are willing to fight for her. The wife eventually realizes that they may cause more hurt to the child by tearing her away from the only parents she has ever known. They need to talk about it.
We cut to the cage in the basement, where a very pregnant kidnap victim introduces herself to the most recent blonde-haired captive. "Why is he doing this?" the woman cries. The pregnant captive explains that the kidnapper wants babies. "But I'm not pregnant!" the new prisoner says. Not yet.
Back at police headquarters, the team runs down the new profile. The unsub is married. "He gets to kidnap, rape and kill the runaways and she gets to keep the children," Hotch explains. Emily urges the members of the force to look for wives in the last five years who repeatedly came into the ER with signs of spousal abuse. Reid, meanwhile, has made a shocking discovery: the located child was dropped off at a Presbyterian church -- just like three others in a 20-mile radius over the past few years. Connecting the locations on the map, it appears that the team now has a good idea of where the unsubs live! Yeah, boy genius! And there's something else: all the kids dropped at churches are girls. "They're keeping the boys," Rossi says.
Later, Derek and JJ take a time out from the case to discuss Hotch's unusually demanding behavior toward Derek. JJ explains that it might have something to do with the closed-door meeting their boss recently had with Strauss. "Now they're making him justify every decision," she explains. "For Hotch, that's hell." For everyone else, too.
Rossi, on the other hand, doesn't have time for such speculation. He is busy quizzing a fertility expert, who suggests that the drugs being administered to these women are not top of the line. She goes on to suggest that perhaps the female unsub already had the drugs for another disease before discovering that they could help bring an expectant mother to term. Asks Rossi: "What other diseases do these drugs treat?"
Cut to the basement birthing chamber, the most recent hostage has been forced to help the extremely pregnant captive give birth. Turns out that the preggers woman has been with child before but miscarried each time. "They want those boys," she sighs.
Cut to headquarters. Rossi reveals the "other disease" to be breast cancer. Hotch asks Garcia to figure out how many women in the area became pregnant after being diagnosed with breast cancer since the first victim was taken. She responds with seven names, but only one has a history of being abused. Even worse, that one woman lost the baby in the eighth month. "She had to go through labor anyway," Garcia says. The baby was a boy named Michael. Hotch points out the obvious: "They're recreating him." Yikes.
Speak of the devils, we see the unsubs come downstairs to the basement as the pregnant captive gives birth. It's a boy. The wife is obviously very ill and has undergone chemotherapy. She takes the newborn in her arms and whispers, "Michael."
The team, meanwhile, readies to storm the unsubs house. Hotch asks Derek to write up a plan. Derek protests that he never had to do that before. That's because I always did it for you afterward, Hotch replies. "I can't do it anymore." In other words, Derek, Hotch has been doing your boring paperwork all these years and it stops now.
At the house, Derek suggests a "soft entry" so that they might snag any children before the kidnappers/killers realize their offspring is gone. Hotch suggests letting JJ and Emily enter first, as they will be less frightening to any children that may be in the house. Sure enough, JJ and Emily sneak in with guns drawn and find a blond-haired boy on the couch. They take the child outside. Suddenly, the male unsub steps out of the bathroom. Rossi quickly corrals him -- and roughly at that. Derek then storms the nursery, where "mom" cradles the newborn. "I always knew you'd come to our door and take this away," the wife cries. Derek holsters his gun. "I need you to think about the baby now," he says. Reluctantly, the woman hands over the child to Derek. "Michael" is safe -- and quickly returned to the arms of his true mother.
But what about the older blond-haired boy rescued from the couch? Turns out he is the brother of the four-year-old girl who has already been adopted. JJ introduces the boy -- also named Michael, of course -- to the grandparents, who weep. As for the little girl, the adoptive parents don't want to give her up but do want her to know her grandparents. That's going to be an interesting conversation when she asks about her "real" mommy.
Case closed, but not the episode. There is still the small matter of Hotch vs. Derek. The latter enters the former's office for a chat. "The Bureau thinks my ability to lead this team has been compromised," Hotch says. "I'm resigning as unit chief at the end of the week." He then explains that Derek will be in charge. That's why Hotch was introducing Derek to the paperwork. It's the only way for Hotch to avoid being reassigned. Plus, Hotch says that if that happens, the whole team is likely to be reassigned as well. Derek accepts on one condition: once the Reaper is captured, everything goes back to normal. But when will that be? Then Hotch pulls out two file boxes of more paperwork. "This is the job." Yikes.
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