This week’s episode deals with a rather unusual situation for the BAU: splitting up the team on a case. It’s been done before, of course. We’ve even had episodes where some team members work one case while other team members work an entirely different one.
Still, it’s always an odd setup when it does happen, and this episode was no exception. There was a whole lot of mystery and intrigue, which lent an unpredictable aspect to the proceedings, but fortunately, I feel that ultimately benefited the episode in the end. This season has had many episodes full of twists and turns so far, most of which have worked, and it’s good to have this episode being among the ones that worked.
The Case:
A blonde and a brunette meet up in a bar in El Paso. No, that’s not the start of a joke. The blonde woman mysteriously introduces herself as Ben Franklin, and she’s not here to talk U.S. history. Instead, she claims to have been invited here on behalf of a sponsor for the brunette, in order to check on her. Perhaps this is an intervention sort of deal?
Further discussion involves Ms. “Ben Franklin” reminding the other woman that she needs to get moving on recruiting five people for…something. We’re not entirely sure what this something is. A cult? A sponsorship program? A time-share? Who knows?
After the women part, “Franklin” calls somebody named George, and given the particular name choice here, wild guess it ain’t just any George she’s calling. A very mysterious beginning that leaves us with many questions right off the bat. Whatever this Franklin’s involved in, considering the type of show this is, it very likely isn’t going to be good.
Things only get even more cryptic and weird when, back in D.C., Hotch meets up with a man downtown one night. Said man claims that somebody named Mr. Axelrod wants to see him, and the next thing we know, Hotch is in this really fancy, upscale parlor, with some sort of classical music floating somewhere in the background. Curiouser and curiouser… Clearly this is not going to be a typical “Criminal Minds” episode.
After exchanging pleasantries, Mr. Axelrod gets down to business. There are three DEA agents who’ve recently gone missing. Axelrod has a sneaking suspicion that there’s a mole in the DEA who gave up information on the missing agents, and is therefore responsible for them going missing. He suspects the assistant director, a man named Bernard Graff, might be the mole in question, and he wants Hotch to investigate him.
As for the missing agents themselves, one of them, Agent Bowers, has recently been found dead. He was strangled, but what made his murder particularly grotesque is that he had another victim’s face covering his own. Lovely. The others are a man named John Portman, and a woman who turns out to be the brunette who met up with “Ben Franklin” at the bar earlier. Her name is Sarah, and we soon learn she has a family, which only adds to the urgency of this situation.
Axelrod wants Hotch’s team to investigate this case, because these missing agents are connected to an investigation of a drug ring called Libertad. The ring may have some sort of connection to Silk Road and Montolo, and since the BAU has been following everything with Montolo, perhaps they might be able to find some connections between the two organizations. Plus, since Axelrod did a favor for Hotch once, frankly, he owes him, he points out. Cue the theories about this apparent favor.
“A mole hunt is ill-advised for those who don’t wanna risk their own skin. That’s an old proverb I just made up.”
Hotch eventually accepts the offer, but there’s a catch. After talking his plan over with Rossi a little more, Hotch decides that the rest of the BAU is going to go to El Paso to investigate the ground portion of this missing persons case. He, on the other hand, is going to stay behind in D.C. and work on the cyber side of things, all the while subtly profiling the workers at the DEA to see who the mole might be. Oh, yeah. This is definitely not going to be your average episode.
Before the opening credits, we see that Sarah and John are being held captive in what looks like some sort of barn, and the unsub is putting some sort of powdery substance into a jar of water…with which he then proceeds to essentially waterboard John. On with the case!
Hotch soon meets up with Graff, who’s working with another woman, Agent Mitchell. Graff’s got the total action hero look to him, and he seems very cordial to Hotch, ready and eager to help him solve this case. But when Hotch is out of earshot, Graff and Mitchell are whispering to themselves, talking about keeping an eye on him in turn. We’ve barely met Graff and he’s already acting all shady, lending credence to Axelrod’s concerns.
Meanwhile, there’s another man working at the DEA named Simon who’s all upset because a friend of his died recently. He thinks the circumstances of the friend’s death are far from innocent. Simon was a confidential informant for the DEA, and recently seemed to be getting disillusioned with his job. His friend had recently alerted the DEA to the Libertad organization. So yeah, if I were Simon, I’d be looking twice at those around me, too. The timing just seems too suspicious.
Back in El Paso, we learn more information about the missing agents. They’d all recently missed their check-ins on their undercover work, thus alerting everyone to the fact they were indeed missing, and hadn’t just run away of their own free will. They were studying what appears to be a pyramid scheme within the drug ring, and posed as buyers. Agent Bowers had been undercover for four months, Agent Portman for three months, and Sarah was the newbie at just ten weeks.
They also find out the identity of the person whose face was placed atop Bowers’. His name was Arwin Cole, and he was a drug offender. Incidentally, when Bowers’ body was found, it was near a mass grave made up of people who were killed by drug cartels. The team believes this may be some sort of forensic countermeasure. Their unsub is a plain ol’ serial killer, but they can hide their crimes by passing them off as the work of these drug organizations. A rather inventive, albeit unsettling, method.
As for good ol’ Ben Franklin? Turns out they’re the go-between for Libertad, connecting the work on the ground with the activities online. The blonde woman posing as Franklin sure doesn’t look like the sort one might expect to be involved in a drug ring, but as this show has proven over the years, looks can be quite deceiving.
Tara and JJ stop into the bar that “Franklin” and Sarah met up at in hopes of learning a little more about Sarah. The manager doesn’t seem all that interested in cooperating at first, but then Tara and JJ get all awesome and start threatening to alert the FBI to the fact that the man may be committing some potential tax violations. Shocker of shockers, he’s suddenly willing to talk and give them the information they need!
Elsewhere, a visit to the medical examiner reveals another disturbing aspect of this whole “face covering another face” setup. The unsub had nailed the ripped off faces onto the ones of those they killed. If there is one saving grace to this disturbing M.O., it’s that the nailing of the faces was done postmortem, so at least this unsub isn’t a total sadist. Yay?
This does not bode well for John and Sarah, who are still being held captive. Sarah watches in horror as John gets taken away by the unsub, and hopes for John surviving this are fading quickly. Sadly, that suspicion is soon proven true, when John’s body is eventually found. Unlike Bowers, however, he was not dumped near a mass grave. This leads the team to think that perhaps the unsub is deciding to do away with attempts to throw the officials off the trail, either because he’s getting sloppy or he’s getting ridiculously bold.
John isn’t the only person who’ll die this episode, either. Remember poor Simon? He’s killed, too, via a car explosion. Garcia also shares some new and intriguing information. Back in 2011, there was a serial killer case in Mexico that a detective was working on. Sadly, the detective passed away from an illness, but not before sending a report about his findings on the case across the border to El Paso.
The M.O. from that case is eerily similar to the M.O. of the murders on this case. Hmmm.
Speaking of serial killers, we return to the place where Sarah’s being held. A man comes into the barn, and for a moment, Sarah’s hopeful. It’s John! He’s alive. He even says so, muttering over and over how “he didn’t kill me”. Could the discovery of John’s body have been a fakeout? Did John escape?
Eh, no. Turns out it’s a horrible taunt from the unsub, as he pulls John’s face away, shattering Sarah’s hopes. Okay, I take back what I said earlier. This guy is indeed a total sadist. Yuck.
“Axelrod said you were a real straight arrow. Like Elliot Ness reborn.”
As the D.C. portion of the case continues, Hotch and Graff remain coolly civil to each other, all while trying to subtly size each other up, and it’s kind of amusing. Graff reveals that his family has a long history of working in the DEA, and he and Hotch commiserate over the struggle of working for the government.
That night, Hotch is called to another downtown meeting, this time with Graff. Hotch warily eyes the SUV, keeping a decent distance as he starts it up with one of those clicker things. Wise choice – anyone else get “Mayhem” vibes from this scene? Fortunately, his car is fine.
Graff, on the other hand, doesn’t quite fare as well. Shortly after getting into his car, there’s a small bang of some sort and shattered glass. He’s been shot to death. Initially the local officers assume the shooting is a suicide, but Hotch is certain it’s murder, and his guess is soon proven right. Hotch reveals that he found nothing in his investigation of Graff to indicate he was the mole, therefore the murder isn’t some sort of retaliatory gesture, but rather a means of permanently silencing him. So if Graff was totally innocent, then who else is worth investigating? Mitchell believes there might be someone else putting DEA agents at risk. First Simon, now Graff…it just can’t be a coincidence.
Back in El Paso, Rossi and JJ are meeting with the infamous Ben Franklin, whose real name turns out to be Jillian Carter. And good lord, is she ever annoying. Not because she is, as the bar manager from earlier described her, a soccer mom. She works on charity boards, she’s got a successful husband, she’s involved in school activities. All of that is great in and of itself. But she speaks in such a haughty manner, thus setting my teeth on edge right off the bat. Her protestations of innocence ring hollow, too. Even if we hadn’t seen her meeting Sarah at the bar at the start of the episode, her general behavior and air would’ve given her away.
Her demeanor sure makes Rossi and JJ’s back and forth with her all the more enjoyable to watch, though. They match her snark for snark, and JJ calls her out for keeping her secret life from her husband. She’s the stereotypical suburban mom who’s hopped up on prescription pills, and she got roped into this whole Libertad thing, getting in way over her head in the process. If she doesn’t cooperate with the BAU, they’ll spill it all to her husband. And just like the aforementioned bar manager, suddenly Jillian is willing to cooperate. She is indeed part of Libertad, but she doesn’t know who specifically this George she talked to at the start of the episode is. All she knows is that troublesome members are sent somewhere to be “dealt with”. At least the team has an address now, though, so that’s a big break.
Morgan and Tara are sent to the address in question, and it turns out to be some out of the way dinky general store and gas station. Garcia’s trying to talk to Morgan, but Morgan is struggling to get a good phone signal in such a remote area. He offers to drive off to another spot in the hopes of getting better reception, and Tara decides to stay behind and continue exploring the area, maybe interview a few locals if possible. Yeah. Good idea, guys. Splitting up always works out so well for this team!
Once Morgan is able to get in contact with Garcia, she gives him information about their unsub. His name is Jacob DuFour, he owns the building Tara’s poking around at, and he has a very disturbing history full of mental illness, animal abuse, and drug offenses. Never a good combination, and Morgan is eager to get back to Tara in hopes of warning her to be careful.
To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Tara soon encounters DuFour, who tases her before running off. Luckily, Morgan has arrived by then and gives chase. It doesn’t take long for him to put a bullet in DuFour’s head. Sarah will be saved, and that wraps up the El Paso portion of the case.
Meanwhile, back in D.C., Hotch wraps up his part of the investigation. After Graff’s murder, he’d initially suspected Axelrod was the mole, but Axelrod had an airtight alibi for the time period when all this weirdness went down, so he’s cleared. Which is good, ‘cause I like him.
So who is the mole? Turns out it’s NSA Director Cochran. Hotch confronts the director with his evidence, revealing that Cochran was working with DuFour in the drug trade. He ran a racketeering ring and helped DuFour manipulate the Mexican serial killer case from a few years ago as a means of trying to cover up drug organization-related murders. Really comforting to know that people in such high positions can pull stuff like that, isn’t it? Cochran is lead away in handcuffs, protesting and ranting the entire way, and Hotch and Axelrod grab a much needed drink to celebrate the end of the case. There’s still more drug cartels and shady groups of this sort out there, but at least Libertad has been taken out, so that’s a small reassurance.
I rather liked the unusual setup that this case provided, though I was more intrigued by the goings-ons on the D.C. side of the case than I was the El Paso side. I thought the D.C. side had a little more mystery to it, and more variety in terms of potential suspects. I liked the unpredictable nature of Hotch’s investigation, and the debate over whether or not to trust Graff. There was also a lot of well-done tension with Hotch’s covert meetings with higher ups. When it came to the El Paso side of things, I particularly liked seeing how the other team members worked together when being paired off, and I felt for poor Sarah during her captivity. Yes, going undercover poses a lot of risks, but still, I shudder to think of what else DuFour might’ve been capable of with her had the BAU not come along when they did and saved her. I wonder if she’ll get out of the undercover business altogether after this. I certainly would.
Meanwhile, on the personal front…:
Not really much to report here for this episode. Basically, Garcia is still shacking up at the office, and she’s been trying to make it look and feel more like a home instead of just a drab, small room. Being cooped up is getting to her all the same, though, as she vents to Hotch when he stops by to check on her.
Fortunately, she’s got support. Rossi tells Hotch he plans to bring Garcia a garden troll in the hopes of cheering her up, which, aw, and Hotch is very sympathetic and reassuring when he talks to Garcia about her concerns.
In the hopes of providing some sort of distraction, Garcia invites Hotch to stay and have a vegetarian omelet with her. He accepts, and as they’re preparing dinner, there’s a rare sighting of a Hotch smile and laugh! It’s a sweet moment between these two after such a strange, bizarre case. Hotch and Garcia are practically polar opposites in so many ways, but moments like this are a lovely example of what makes their interaction so entertaining and special.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Did the unusual setup of the case work for you? Which portion, if any, was more intriguing, Hotch’s time at the DEA or the team in El Paso? Or did you enjoy both aspects of the case? How much longer do you think Garcia’s going to stay in protective custody? Share your thoughts in the comments!
