S1E4 - “Plain Sight”
We open on a bird flying gracefully as “Respect” by Aretha Franklin plays. We follow the bird as it floats down in an affluent suburb in San Diego, California where we see Brenda Samms working out using step aerobics. Downstairs in her house, we notice that a window has been left open, and an intruder enters her home. We see a shot of Mrs. Samm’s kitchen including a coffee machine and an expensive looking espresso machine which is my kind of house. Killer turns off the water faucet that was dripping in the sink- environmentally conscious. I guess Brenda was in the process of polishing her silverware and then decided to work out? Cut to after her murder, we see that her eyes have been glued open and she was strangled to death. There is also creepy writing scrawled on her bedroom mirror in lipstick. This could have been a cool POV shot with the mirror & stuff but they just didn’t do that...
Also it’s Reid’s bday? Cut to BAU in Quantico Virginia, where Reid is blowing out candles of a cake. JJ has to teach Reid about trick candles? There’s a whole Goobs having a crush on JJ arc in this episode that literally is never referenced again, please ignore.
The BAU team is introduced to the “Tommy Killer”. His victims are six women who have been raped and murdered in their homes in the last three weeks. The most recent murders were just days apart, which means that the unsub has rapidly escalated. He’s called the “Tommy Killer” because he uses lines from the Who’s rock opera Tommy (“see me, feel me, touch me”). ?? He doesn’t though! He uses verses from “Death and the Lady”, a ballad written in the 1600s by Lesley Nelson-Burns. The piece is a conversation between Death and lady. The unsub leaves large swaths of this ballad written on walls/mirrors at victim’s homes, but only utilizes verses spoken by death. An example one- “Fair lady, throw those costly robes aside. No longer may you glory in your pride. Take leave of all your carnal, vain delight. I’ve come to summon you away this night.”
The glued eyes is identified as the unsub’s signature, and we get the definition of a signature as “The behavior that isn’t necessary for the murder, but necessary for the emotional release.”
Cut to the BAU at the San Diego police headquarters. Yes they did use their private jet to get there. We meet Captain Griffith, the Tommy Killer task force commander. There’s a whole montage of Gideon hearing voices of I guess the dead women talking to their kids while he looks at the pictures of the dead women.
Cut to a woman named Marcia Gordon picking lemons from the lemon tree in her backyard. Jealous. She continues inside where she is cooking, maybe lasagna? She has TWO full ovens in her house! We see an unsub attacks her, but we later learn the attack was interrupted by the Mrs. Gordon’s husband coming home.
Elle and Hotch go to the interview the Gordons. Mr. Gordon tells the police that his wife’s attack was black and over six feet tall. To which Hotch says “Inter-racial serial sex crimes are rare.” Elle questions Mrs. Gordon who admits to Elle that she couldn’t tell what race her attacker was because he wore a ski mask. We learn that Mrs. Gordon was not attacked by the Tommy Killer, but was attacked by a “garden variety rapist”???? (if anyone was curious this isnt a legit classification, more of a shorthand comment, but it does make sense) Basically- TK is more sophisticated, would’ve knew what time her husband was due home, would not have worn a ski mask because he doesn’t leave survivors, etc. Elle tells us “as the victim’s age goes up, generally the offender’s age goes down” which put Mrs. Gordon’s disorganized rapist at 20. The BAU quickly arrests Mrs. Gordon’s rapist who was a grocery deliveryman.
Meanwhile, Morgan and Gideon inspect Brenda Samm’s house. We really get to see Morgan at work, and he is just fabulous.
Morgan enters the house through the window, like the unsub did, and he determines that due to the difficulty of this maneuver the unsub is athletic. Morgan notices that the unsub took the espresso machine, china, and silver upstairs to the murder scene where he destroyed it. Morgan determines that the unsub must have done this post-murder. The unsub also moved Mrs. Samm’s step aerobics thing under the bed and vacuumed her room. First the water conservation then this- what consideration! Long and short- unsub spent a lot of time in Samm’s home.
PROFILE “EXPLOTATIVE RAPIST”
· Unsub has a “Killing Kit”. He brought his weapons with him (tape, glue, wire) and did not leave them at the scene.
· He communicates with cops (leaving the ballad’s verses at the crimes scenes so that the cops would link the crimes together)
· Organized. Organized killers likely have skilled jobs which may involve the use of their hands.
· Needs a vehicle (crime scenes are far apart).
· Said vehicle may be related to his work like a company car due to the attacks occurring during the day (diurnal).
· Home and vehicle will be well-kept obsessively clean.
· Watches victims for a time, learns rhythms of a home, knows his time frame.
· He destroys symbols of wealth in his victim’s homes because he harbors envy and hatred of people of a higher social class
o Is probably middle class (because a lower class person would go noticed in the neighbors the unsub is killing in)
o Must feel inadequate in his life (“under the thumb of a powerful woman who frightens him” as per Gideon)
· He is white
The BAU lies to the press and tells them that they have arrested the Tommy Killer, knowing this was cause the real serial killer to grow angered. Hotch makes sure that Garcia has access to the San Diego task force’s tip line. Garcia is wearing a necklace of what looks like maple leaves? Also calls herself “The Office of Unmitigated Superiority”. Then “Office of Unfettered Omniscience”. Anyhoo, she will be able to trace any call from the unsub, as long as he stays on the line for at least 15 seconds.
As predicted, TK calls and yells at the BAU. He calls himself death. “I am death” and tells the BAU that “they will see tomorrow” Garcia is puzzled because she is unable to track the call, although TK was on the line for more than fifteen seconds.
Gideon is a bird watcher. Garcia couldn’t get a fix on the call because it was routed through twenty-five different substations (I guess phone lines?). Gideon discovers that the unsub positions the victims so that they were staring up a telephone lines- unsub is a telephone technician by the name of Franklin Graney who works for San Diego Bell. Not a real phone company! The BAU rushes to find the Tommy Killer before he kills again, parking their cars literally in the middle of the street.
Cut to Shelly Hart who is a mother at home with her baby when she is attacked by the Graney. Gideon hears her son crying, and finds him abandoned in his high chair. Gideon leaves the kid screaming AND KISSES THE BABY?(nice) and calls the BAU team. He saves Shelly mid-monologue. Gideon uses psychology to get Graney to surrender.
Rating Criteria (out of 20)
Criminal/Serial Killer: 15/20
Character development/ character arcs: 15/20
Forensics/Context: 20/20
Script writing: 17/20
Background characters: 10/20
Overall: 77/100