Criminal Minds (TV Series)

Divining Rod (2012)

Joe Mantegna: David Rossi

Photos 

Quotes 

• Emily Prentiss : You remember when people used to write letters by hand?

  David Rossi : That's how I wrote my first book. Give me a keyboard any day.

  Emily Prentiss : Oh, come on, Rossi. The excitement of seeing an envelope from a friend in your mailbox? Now it's just an electronic ding on your computer.

  David Rossi : One of my various brothers-in-law was a mailman. He said the expression "going postal" made perfect sense to him. You spend all day delivering a mountain of letters one at a time, then you go to work the next morning, and there's a whole new mountain to deal with - and it's forever.

  Emily Prentiss : That sounds like OUR job. It took seven years for the world to get rid of Rod Garrett, and fifteen minutes after, a new one pops up to take his place.

• David Rossi : [gazing at Spencer]  I never could do that.

  Emily Prentiss : Do what?

  David Rossi : Take a nap. Never felt natural.

  Dr. Spencer Reid : I'm actually wide awake, but for future reference, polyphasic sleep is completely natural, quite common in the animal world, and highly beneficial.

• Penelope Garcia : Oh, hey, guys. Hey. I just wanted to see what was going on. Hi, hello.

  Emily Prentiss : This better be important, Garcia.

  Penelope Garcia : Oh, it's nothing. It's just that a messenger came by the office today with some papers from escrow!

  Emily Prentiss : No!

  Penelope Garcia : Oh, yes. The house in Dupont Circle. You got it! Woo!

  Aaron Hotchner : Congratulations!

  David Rossi : [sees Prentiss's smile fade]  Six seconds. Fastest case of buyer's remorse ever.

• Derek Morgan : What do we got, baby girl?

  Penelope Garcia : Thank you, sir. We have a killing in Enid, Oklahoma, and not the capital punishment one you are thinking of right now. I'm talking about a woman named Cara Smith, who was murdered in her apartment minutes after the execution of Rodney Garrett.

  Aaron Hotchner : A neighbor saw her front door open and discovered the body.

  David Rossi : Look familiar?

  Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau : Young, pretty, short blonde hair.

  David Rossi : And stabbed directly through the heart.

  Dr. Spencer Reid : That's exactly the way Garrett killed his victims.

  Derek Morgan : So are we looking at a copycat?

  Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau : Or someone creating doubt the right person was executed.

  David Rossi : In Garrett's case, there was no doubt. His guilt was the slam dunk of all slam dunks. Prints, DNA, a confession.

  Dr. Spencer Reid : He even led police to where he buried two of his victims.

  Emily Prentiss : Garrett killed twenty-five women before he was caught. If this new unsub is a copycat, body count's just started.

• Emily Prentiss : Hotch, I think I found her.

  Aaron Hotchner : You're on speaker, Prentiss.

  Emily Prentiss : The unsub must have circled back. He dumped her just outside the perimeter of the abduction site.

  Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau : Same M.O.?

  Emily Prentiss : No, she's got stab wounds all over her torso. It's bad., and, Hotch, this time he removed her scalp.

  Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau : Overkill. He must be enraged he wasn't able to carry the murder out as planned.

  David Rossi : So now we might have another problem. If our unsub's blueprint is out the window, this may transition him into a spree killer.

• Emily Prentiss : [browsing through mail Garrett received in prison]  Get a load of this one. "Dear Mr. Garrett, it took a lot of courage to do what you did. Most people are cowards and don't do what they feel inside them. You are an inspiration, and I applaud you."

  [scoffs] 

  Emily Prentiss : "I applaud you."

  David Rossi : These are supposed to be the non-wacko letters.

  Penelope Garcia : Hey, guess what? JJ's genius has struck again. That hunch about the hair was right. I'm sending you an ATM image of Cara Smith. She's the first victim. This was taken ten hours before her murder. Check it.

  Detective Childers : The unsub cut her hair, too.

  Dr. Spencer Reid : You know, there could be a sexual element involved. Trichophilia is a fetish where one becomes aroused by the removal of hair.

  Derek Morgan : Well either way, it's starting to look less like a copycat. The unsub's deviating too much from Garrett's M.O. Garrett never took trophies.

• Derek Morgan : Hey, say it like you mean it, baby.

  Penelope Garcia : Yon know, I'm gonna. So, if you look in the dictionary, the word "normal," you will see Cara Smith. College student, uh, well-liked, straight A's, English lit. major. Ooo, speaking of which, I just got a transcript of Rodney Garrett's last words, hot off the press - and a gold star to the first person who can identify the source of this: "She comes like fullest moon on happy night. Taper of waist..."

  Dr. Spencer Reid : "... With shape of magic might." It's from The Thousand and One Nights. Not the exact translation that I would have used, but it's got its own merits.

  Emily Prentiss : And in a shocking non-upset, we have a winner.

  David Rossi : Garrett was sixth-grade dropout, an unlikely guy to be quoting from a Harvard Classic.

• Emily Prentiss : He started killing shortly after you were married?

  Helen Garrett : Yeah.

  David Rossi : And you never suspected this other life he was leading?

  Helen Garrett : No. People only see what they want to see, I guess.

  Emily Prentiss : Where will you go now, Helen?

  Helen Garrett : Put in for a transfer for a job in Missouri. Don't know anybody there; people don't know me. It's a fresh start.

  David Rossi : What about family?

  Helen Garrett : My family don't want to know me. They couldn't understand why I'd stand by Rod after everything that he done. As far as they're concerned, I'm just as bad as him.

• [the last words from executed serial killer Rod Garrett were quotes from "The Thousand and One Nights"] 

  Dr. Spencer Reid : The book is all about how Scheherazade forestalled her own death at the hands of the king by regaling him night after night with stories.

  Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau : But in the end she won him over, right? The king found love and he decided not to execute her.

  David Rossi : Not a strategy likely to work with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.