S2E13 - “No Way Out”
We open in Golconada Nevada, where a cleanly severed arm is lying by the side of a highway.
Then we instantly cut to a diner where a waitress is entering an order for a client. Enter agents Gideon and Morgan from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. The waitress spots Mandy and says: “Ah, finally! You walk into my life. What took you so long, handsome?” Mandy totally ignores her, and instead walks over to a man sitting at a diner booth by himself. Mandy asks him if he can sit down, and the man agrees. While Mandy is doing this we hear the waitress, almost to herself “No thanks, I don’t need anything.” The waitress then brings the mystery man a strawberry milkshake.
Mystery Man asks Gideon what his name is and Gideon answers. The man then says: “Jason. From Greek Mythology. To heal. Giden. A hero from the old testament. Your parents had great ambitions for you. I’m Frank. Germanic. Third century. Derived from the name of a type of spear. I wonder what aspirations my parents had for me.” Morgan says: “Why don’t we cut the crap Frank? Where is she?” And of course we don’t know who “she” is. Gideon tells Frank that he’s from the FBI and presents a little profile to Frank.
PROFILE- SADISTIC SERIAL KILLER
Man in his late fifties
Listens to Beethoven
Wears a corduroy jacket with a fleece-lined collar
Left handed
In his right inside jacket pocket will be a notebook, and it will give extensive detailed accounts of the torture inflicted on every one of his victims.
Morgan pulls open Frank’s right inside jacket pocket and pulls out a notebook. The jacket is a corduroy jacket with a fleece lined collar and I just need everyone to know that these types of jackets make me HORNY! So obviously Frank is the unsub!
Frank says: “Guess what. When I’m finished with my shake, you’ll get what you’re here for. But then… I’m going to get up…and I’m going to walk out of here. And you and your lap dog are going to let me.” And then Frank takes a big sip of his shake. We zoom out of the diner and see that the diner is surrounded by a bunch of police cars. Frank then tells Morgan: “If I had your looks, do you know much easier my life would be?” Gideon then asks Frank if he wants to know how the BAU caught him. And of course he does!!!
Flashback to yesterday. We’re at BAU Headquarters in Quantico VA. JJ introduces the team to the latest case. They’re received a request from Nevada Sheriff Georiga Davis. In 1996 the dismembered chest cavity of a victim was found in Desert Rhodes National Park. This initial victim was never identified and the murder was never solved. And yesterday two more torsos were found in almost exactly the same location. All three bodies were missing right rib bones. Of the two bodies found recently, one was found to be in a worse decomposition state than the other. The “fresher’ body belongs to that of Katherine Hale who was a runaway from Salt Lake City Utah.
Mandy suddenly bursts in and is like we have thirteen more linked cases where torsos were recovered missing rib bones! This is the most prolific serial killer we’ve ever seen! Even more prolific than Vincent Perrotta I guess! This serial killer has been active for thirty years, killing indiscriminately. Victims are tortured and disremember, and then their rib cages are dumped in remote parts of Interstate 80. Every victim is missing a right rib bone, which has been surgically removed. Mandy makes a comment how this killer preys on the “unwanted” but this is not really explored at all?
Cut to Golconda Nevada where we meet Sheriff Georgia Davis (“people call me George”) and Deputy Rick Siglock. George tells the BAU that she was part of the original team that found the first body. Suddenly “Smoke On The Water” begins to play and she’s like “Oh, my cell. It’s my husband, that’s our song.” Morgan and Hotch examine the most recent unidentified body. They realize that the victims were alive while they were dismembered. They also identify the most recent victim from his prison gang tattoos, his name was Reno Rodriguez who was also last seen in Salt Lake City.
Cut to the Golconda police station. Reid and Prentis meet Jane, who is being manhandled by a police officer. She is having a mental health crisis. She keeps screaming that “he’s coming” and telling the police that she does not want to go home. She drops a flute and panics, so Prentis intervenes and gives it back to her. As the police lock her away Reid says: “A psycho with a whistle. That’s not weird.”
Cut back to the Golconda diner. All the diner guests and staff (including Icon Horny Waitress) being evacuated. Frank asks Gideon if Gideon thinks he’s insane. Gideon says: “You know exactly what you are. You are a psychopathic sexual sadist. You get off on the brutal torture of others. Which is why you took her.” Frank says: “Who’s playing who know. You don’t care about her. You only ever cared about catching me. It isn’t the victims that drive you Jason. It’s the hunt.”
Back at Quantico, JJ and Garcia map out all the victims to try to find a pattern. They realize that the unsub is utilizing the I-80 interstate and driving back and forth cross country murdering people. However, the unsub keeps coming back to Gloconda. Mandy initially found 13 cases, but Garcia has found over a hundred cases across North America with people missing right ribs I guess? Weird that no law enforcement professional was ever like- “Hey. Is it just me. Or are we finding a lot of bodies missing right ribs?” Garcia also finds evidence from some of the early victims that Ketamine was found in their systems.
Cut back to the Golconda police station. The fact that the unsub keeps his victims alive while torturing them leads the BAU to determine that the unsub needs to see the “terror in his victims eyes”.
PROFILE- SADISTIC SERIAL KILLER
Man in his late fifties
Highly intelligent
Methodically and obsessively clean
His vehicle is most likely and RV that is muted in color. Neither old nor new, but in perfect working order.
It will have a CB, radar detectors, and police band radio.
The vehicle is his killing room. It will be soundproofed and surgical instruments are on the walls. There’s a stirrup chair or an autopsy table in it.
All of his kills are recorded (if not on video, in a journal that he carries with him in his right inside jacket pocket)
This man is void of all normal human feelings
The Golconda police put up roadblocks all around town and attempt to stop every RV and trailer. Sheriff George tells Gideon that the profile he just gave reminds her of a story she once heard. A story told to her by Crazy Jane!! Remember! The one who Reid called a “psycho” earlier? The one clearly having a mental health crisis? Well she’s in jail now. She says she does not want to go home. Sherrif George asks Jane to tell the BAU her story.
Prentis complements Jane’s flute. She asks Jane if she made it, and Jane says it was a gift. Guys- it’s a fucking rib bone flute. IT’S A RIB BONE FLUTE!!
Jane tells the BAU that she was abducted by the unsub (Frank) when her car broke down. Except she thinks Frank was an alien. She woke up on his “spaceship” and she could see herself and there were “strange maps on the walls”. Quote: “The alien he did things to me. He touched me very softly and stroked my hair. Drew lines all over my body. And the whole time he was standing there smiling at me. And then I looked in his eyes and I wasn’t afraid anymore.” Then she woke up in her bed unharmed. This happened 30 years ago when she was 19. She says she never saw him again.
The BAU discusses the case. Gideon theorizes that the unsub has a mirror on the ceiling of the killing van so that the victims could watch themselves be dismembered. Basically, Jane struggles with mental health, and she became deluded into believing she was abducted by an alien, and she was drugged up with ketamine by Frank, and because she wasn’t afraid, Frank released her.
We flash forward to now time at the diner with Frank, Gideon and Morgan. We learn that the “she” that was referred to in the beginning of this episode is Sheriff George. Meaning that Frank has recently abducted Sheriff George. Remember “Smoke On The Water”?? Well Mr. Smoke On The Water shows up at the diner and points a shot gun at Frank and demands to know where George is. Morgan pulls his gun on Mr. Smoke On The Water and they yell at each other. Frank then pulls a bag out of nowhere and drops it on the table. He says: “But you know what’s an even more interesting question? What’s the psychopath got in the bag, Jason? WHAT’S THE PSYCHOPATH GOT IN THE BAG JASON???
It’s a severed head. He’s got a severed head in his bag! But thankfully it is not Sheriff George’s head. Anyways Mr. Smoke On The Water is escorted out of the diner by Morgan. Flashback to before times I guess. The BAU and Golconda police force spread out across an RV park to find the unsub? They do not find him. Deputy SigLock says: “I wanna know why he’s managed to get away with it for so long.”
We cut immediately to Reid and Prentis having… probably the dumbest conversation I’ve ever heard. Reid says: “To get away with murder, you simply don’t tell anyone.” And Prentis says: “And the only people he told were the people he killed.”
Anyways… JJ and Garcia discover that the unsub travels across country East to West and travels through the same states during the same months each year. Then he gets to Golconda and takes a month off? He takes a vacation? Reid and Prentis think that instead of an RV, the unsub drives a car with an attached trailer. He likely has it hidden in town. By the time Gideon gets the news, it’s late at night, and he’s yelling at Sheriff George and Deputy Siglock that they have to go back to town to search for the trailer. Sheriff George says: “Like you said, he never takes victims when he’s here. So if he’s not going anywhere and he hasn’t gotten anyone, it can wait until morning.” And Gideon is like: “Wait? It can’t wait!” But Sheriff George is firm. Gideon is like “DO WHAT YA LIKE I’M GONNA FIND HIM!”
Back at Quantico, the girls are doing the work! JJ has noticed that an anonymous caller called the tip line and reported a tan RV leaving Golconda. But they know that no RVs have passed through the roadblocks, so this is super sus. Garcia traces the number of the anonymous caller, and they discover that it belongs to Katherine Hale! That was Katherine Hale’s cell phone.
Cut to Sherriff George’s house?? And she has Jane with her. I guess Jane didn’t want to go home and Sheriff George didn’t want to leave her in jail? Mr. Smoke On The Water is apparently out of town with their son, so it’s a Girl’s Night at the house. All of a sudden Jane is like HE’S HERE GEORGE and Frank is in the house? Jane is like, the alien came for me! And Frank is like- I love Jane! And then Frank ketos George. And Jane runs off. So Frank kidnaps George!!
Cut back to nowatimes. Frank keeps checking the clock. Apparently it’s been fifteen minutes since the beginning of the episode. But it feels like it’s been fifteen years. The BAU is a step behind us. Because we now know that Frank is in love with Jane. So Frank to the Sheriff George so that the BAU would give him Jane?? We learn that that Frank turned on Catherine Hale’s cell phone at the diner, and that’s when Gideon and Morgan showed up and now we’re at the beginning of the episode.
We learn that while Morgan and Gideon were talking to Frank. Prentis and Hotch went to Jane’s house to look for her. Big ass house with lots of wind chimes. Except… they’re wind chimes made of human rib bones!!! Frank has been leaving Jane presents every time he comes to Golconda. You guys, it’s a love story! The BAU discusses whether or not psychopaths can actually feel love. The BAU realize that Frank has stashed his murder trailer at Jane’s house. The BAU go inside and it’s… as awful as you can imagine. They find a deceased corpse (I guess it was a school teacher) and Sheriff George who is still alive!!
So Sheriff George and her husband reunite. Yay! Frank tells Gideon and Morgan he has commandeered an elementary school field trip, murdered the teacher in charge (we just saw her corpse) and hid the children out in the desert. This is why he’s been telling the BAU that he’s going to walk out of the diner a free man.
Frank says he’ll tell the BAU the location of the kidnapped children if they give him Jane and let them drive off into the sunset together. And Jane wants to go! Everyone is like, Jane girl. Bad call. Psychopaths can’t really feel emotions. But Frank is convinced that what he feels is love. Jane is ready to go. She’s convinced he’s an alien and he’s in love with her. So I guess… if everyone is a consenting adult?
But Gideon doesn’t trust Frank (understandably). So Frank, Gideon and Jane go on a field trip. Gideon tries to convince Jane that Frank is going to eventually get tired of her and kill her, just like he killed hundreds of people. He forgets about all the right rib bone trinkets Frank has given her over the past thirty years! Frank, true to his word, tells Gideon where the youths are, and then takes off with Jane. Gideon tells Frank he’s never going to stop looking for him. And Frank promises to never stop hunting Gideon in return. So… I guess we’re good?
Rating Criteria (out of 20)
Criminal/Serial Killer: 20/20
Character development/ character arcs: 10/20
Forensics/Context: 15/20
Script writing: 7/20
Background characters: 18/20
Overall: 70/100