The Fire of Kamile Rises in Triumph
There are a lot of serial killers in Hawaii. It doesn’t seem like you can go two steps, make a therapy appointment, or break into a house without running into one. It must have seemed like a paradise for Dr. Madison Gray, a psychopath who preys on other psychopaths and, contrary to her control freak nature, absolutely loves causing chaos.
But first, we start with a flashback to Alicia Brown’s profiling classes at Quantico. She gives a lecture on female serial killers, concluding that there are few that actually fit into this category (oh, how wrong you are, Alicia. We meet two in this episode alone!). One student asks insightful questions, prompting Alicia to ask her her name. It turns out it’s her daughter, Sienna. Everyone in the class has a good laugh over the blatant nepotism.
After a confusing flash-forward to Alicia getting stabbed, we finally arrive at the cliffhanger from last week. Steve and Alicia have gone to Gray’s office to interview her about her patient, Detective Lau. While Steve treats Gray like a witness, the chess history on Gray’s bookcase causes Alicia to immediately suspect her of being the killer. She can’t hide her agitation and confronts Gray about Lau’s murder. Gray doesn’t rise to the bait and makes sure to look as helpful and professional as possible.
While Steve isn’t completely satisfied with the appointment, Alicia’s antsy behavior forces him to play devil’s advocate and he tells her they don’t have nearly enough information to make that kind of conclusion. Alicia takes matters into her own hands and breaks into Gray’s house. She finds the unique chess set that provided the pieces and files on all the “pawn” killers. She calls Steve, hoping that he can show up and arrest her for breaking and entering, which will circumvent the need for a search warrant if the files and the chess set are in plain view.
Her plan backfires and both Alicia and Steve are stabbed in the back. Gray was the Chess Piece Killer. As she methodically cleans up her home of any incriminating evidence, Alicia tries to get in her head. She instantly deduces her sad backstory with a sexually abusive and controlling father. Once again, Gray doesn’t rise to the bait. You don’t play mind games with a psychologist. Instead, she pushes Alicia about her own failures as a mother and detective. Alicia encouraged Sienna to enter the FBI and get into the family business, even if she wasn’t especially good at the job. Sienna was killed by someone she was investigating, Edward Sears, and Alicia went to pieces afterward. Alicia quit the FBI and went into self-imposed exile in Hawaii. She may be lying low, but not low enough to hide her past from Gray, or from the two serial killers Gray has outsourced her murder-work to.
Enter the king and queen, Donald and Mallory Witten. Long ago, Alicia arrested Donald and Mallory helped him escape. The two have been harboring a grudge ever since and seem pleased as punch to be hooked up with this job for Gray. Turns out Alicia has a major fear of drowning and the king and queen are happy to toss Steve and Alicia down into a flooding cave on the coast.
It annoyed me a bit that after an interesting episode focused on Alicia, the episode switches into its more familiar mode of Steve saving the day. Alicia doesn’t really confront her role in her daughter’s death or even her fear of drowning. Instead, she becomes a damsel in distress that Steve has to save. Even her near death by drowning occurred off-screen (it’s ok – she got better).
But, I can’t say that the underwater sequence wasn’t incredibly compelling. It was beautifully shot and had me honestly worried about Alicia for a moment. The stunt work and cinematography was terrific (it’s almost always terrific).
When Steve and Alicia manage to climb out of the cave, they run into Chin and Kono, who have been following their trail. The two kill Grey’s psychotic minions and arrive just in time for Steve to assure them that he and Alicia are alright. The characters and the script writers seem to have forgotten that both were stabbed in the back with a gigantic knife a little while ago. I guess your most recent near-death experience cancels out your second most recent one.
Gray burns up Steve’s truck (rude!) and flees to Los Angeles, where it looks like she’s continuing her sick mind games. While Steve is sure that they will never catch her, I’m sure we’ll see her sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, Jerry informs Chin that a cell phone recovered after the shootout in the last episode had the number of Sara’s aunt and uncle. They aren’t the kind, good samaritians Chin is telling himself they are and Chin finally has a reason to start fighting to keep Sara.
Also, in a very random scene, Lou meets his idol, Otis Wilson of the 1985 Chicago Bears. I was very happy that they stated that because I would have been very confused otherwise.
Despite some minor irks, this episode was a great character study for Alicia and had an intense and thrilling conclusion.
Danny Watch: It’s not exactly unusual for Danny to disappear in certain episodes. This week, he was visiting New Jersey. I assume that when Steve was climbing out of the cave with his kelp rope, Danny got a sudden urge to call at him and yell at him about ruining his liver.
What did you think of tonight's episode? Let me know in the comments!
