We open in the woods in Boise, Idaho - Boise National Forest. We see a man dirtied and desperate running through the woods past deer. Then we see two men in camouflage with backpacks and arrows walking together. They seem comfortable in the woods. The man running trips and falls, his nose bloodied. The two brothers realize they are near a deer and the older looking one of the two gives instructions and encouragement to the other on how to shoot/kill the deer. Johnny, the younger shoots and misses, but his older brother doesn’t and we then see that it was THE MAN RUNNING that they both were shooting at. They seem proud of their work, but then walk away.

Cut and we now see the ladies of the BAU at a bar. There is a man who is hitting on Prentis and saying he’s an FBI agent. See! One hunting ground to another! Only this one doesn’t feel as sinister - hence, no shaky cam here. My favorite part is when JJ is like “what department are you in?” and he’s like “that’s classified”. Emily is playing along with it, and so do JJ and Garcia - all of them being like omg do you have a badge and gun. And he’s like year. So Prentis asks to dee it, but he’s like “oh I don’t have it” so then Prentis is like “does it look like this?” and she pulls out her badge, followed by Garcia and JJ. he’s humiliated and walks away, to which Garcia says “I am so blogging about this later”. The prey have tricked their predator! I wonder if this will parallel the main story here. As he leaves JJ’s phone rings, and of course, they all have to be whisked away.

JJ briefs them and basically a year ago victims in their vehicles went missing, and they were found over 200 miles away in remote Idaho. The autopsies on the victims show that they had similar wounds - but no bullets were found so they are a little stumped on what it could have been. GUYS IT IS CLEARLY A BOW. It also appears they were out in the wilderness for at least 6 to 7 days before being killed. They also notice that given the way they were dressed, they had not intended on going into the woods. And in addition to the two who were found a year ago, another man was found in the same circumstances yesterday. They realize this is a serial killer with no sexual preference, to which Reid says “that’s a first” - is it though? They take note that these victims have no defense wounds, but look as if they were scrambling through the woods - running into trees and losing items of clothing in the run. Gideon is like “there is only one thing you’d run that hard for - your life.”

While on the Jet (hey girl), we learn that Prentis spent a lot of time in the woods growing up, so she’s a bit more familiar with the kind of terrain they’ll be looking at than the others. Next Garcia phones in and says that Spokane has had 10 missing people in their 20s, always in the spring and all of their cars have gone missing as well. They split up between Idaho and Washington upon arrival. JJ, Hotch and Reid go to the deputy’s office and discuss how they STILL DON’T KNOW its arrows that are killing these victims, but there are always two punctures in the bodies. The Sheriff just got promoted to his position, so JJ goes with him to tell the family that their son,, Alex, has been killed. They arrive at the father - Timothy Harrison’s house - and we see mini flashbacks of JJ giving the Sheriff tips on how to navigate giving him this awful news. It pulls on heartstrings a little bit. It is interesting because Timothy is in a lot of denial about his son being dead, but immediately switches into past tense when talking about him. Weird.

Morgan and Prentis go to Idaho to explore the woods. They meet up with the head ranger, Lizzie Evans. She walks with them through the woods and they realize that given the crime scene where Alex was found, there must have been two unsubs, and they were using hunting tactics to kill him. Additionally, they must be extraordinarily familiar with the woods to be able to navigate it.

Gideon rolls up to a hunting supply store, and a kid gives a performance of a lifetime telling Gideon that all the groups are filling up and “you must like the challenge of a bear.” it is a very challenging moment, theatrically. But this kid isn’t just here to make you question the casting directors choices - he also tells Gideon about arrows and how effective they are for hunting. Gideon calls Hotch and Reid, tells them about the arrows and explains that he believes this victims have been caught, released into the woods and hunted like wild animals.

Cut and we see a young woman in a zippy little red car named “Ruby” driving towards Spokane. Her battery dies, and she tries calling roadside assistance. But as she calls, an auto service truck rolls up, and she pulls over, relived to see it. She sees that she has no service on her phone, and two men come out of the auto service car, and approach her. She immediately gets bad vibes and we can see her stress tf out.

Cut and we see Hotch presenting the profile to everyone:

Two offenders in good physical condition
- They have to be fit to make it through this terrain
- Additionally, no one would go that deep into the woods without backup.
Like most partnerships, one will be weak and the other will be strong.
Because they haven’t shown any sexual interest in the victims, they may be developmentally pre-pubescent, OR they could be related.
- If they are related, they could have an “us vs them” mentality.
While most hunters put animals out of their misery, these two have no mercy and enjoy watching their victims die slowly.
These past victims were young, smart and healthy. They survived off of their instincts for days, so they were either approached by these unsubs in an unthreatening way, or the offenders waited for a moment of weakness to attack.
These hunters are very seasoned and very efficient. They have chosen a bow because it requires a lot of precision
- They plan all of this with a lot of care.

Cut to the sheriff station, and a woman shows up informing them that her friend Bobby never showed up to visit her. It is the same woman whose car broke down. She had a big job interview in Spokane - so she wouldnt have missed that. The Sheriff is like “she’s only been missing since last night…are we sure it’s related” but Hotch is like i am NOT going to fuck around and find out. Take a shot every time they say something along the lines of “this is their hunting season”.

Cut and we see Bobby gagged and tied in the back of a car - the auto guys clearly snatched her. More Than a Feeling is blasting on the speakers. They eventually park, pull over and take her out of the car. They cut the ties on her ankles and wrists and then tell her to run, after pulling out the arrows and letting her see them and realize what could happen. Cut to the Sheriff station and Garcia shows that the last two calls Bobby made were to 911 but they didn’t properly go through, and upon investigating the location of her calls, both she and her car were gone.

Bobby runs into a group of campers screaming for help, but before any of them can even really do anything, one of the guys who was just SIMPLY STANDING THERE gets an arrow through his chest. And so does one of the women. The rest of them - two more campers and Bobby take off running.

Garcia locates three different hunting supply stores that sell the specific arrows these unsbus seem to be using, so they go to one of them to see if they can get any information on who buys the arrows. The lady at the store says that there are two brothers who have been coming in for years - one of them is painfully shy and still hasn’t warmed up to her at all despite having been going there for years. Although he does not have a receipt with their names, she says she’s pretty sure their last name was “Mulford” and their uncle, who passed away fairly recently - his first name was Joe.

Garcia does some research, and Joe Mulford had a stellar past. JK. he was a dick. Multiple assault and batteries on his record, and he used to own a service station, but he passed that on to his nephews John and Paul before he past. Turns out that service station - yeah its super close to where the victims have gone missing on highway two. Its getting dark, and Bobbi and the couple are huddling together for warmth. The brothers are watching from a distance but decide to wait until morning to shoot at them because it will “be more fun when they aren’t expecting it.”

In the morning there is an official missing persons report on the two couples that Bobbi encountered. And when Hotch, Reid and the Sheriff go to check on the service station the brothers own, they see that it isn’t open or operating at the moment. But what they do find is that Bobbi’s car is there! Gideon, Prentis and the rest of the team find the campsite that the two couples had been at. Everything looks to be as if it was shredded with knives and dumped - so that if anyone stumbled upon the supplies it would all be worthless! That is so fucking twisted and fucked! There is blood on the ground but they cannot find where the bodies are. Blood drips on to Prentis’s head and she looks up - the bodies are strung up to the trees way above them.

We see Bobbi and the couple running - but the guy quickly gets an arrow through his chest. So he’s a goner. At the service station they find a lot more cars, one that clearly belonged to Alex Harris and then even more - a lot more victims. This is reminding me of Wolf Creek. Reid goes inside the station and finds a cabinet full of drivers licenses. Horrifying. The first one expired in 1980 - before the boys were even born. So they must be keeping the family tradition alive! They were orphaned and abandoned as kids, never went to school and raised by their uncle. Their only socialization were the patrons of the service station.

Cut into the woods and we can see Bobbi and the other woman trying to outsmart the hunters. They have a botched plan where the other woman accidentally somehow exposes herself to the hunters and gets shot, but right after being shot Bobbi rushes up and stabs one of the hunters in the chest repeatedly with a knife she took from the woman’s dead husband.

As vindicating as it is to see her stab him, this is also where we see how close the bond between the brothers are. But then after the older brother tries to take care of him, he’s like I’m gonna leave and kill Bobbi and then take care of you???? The older brother had lit a fire, so the BAU swoops in after seeing the smoke. They arrive and see the younger brother (Johnny) on the ground covered in blood but still alive. They call for an evac because they seem to think he is a potential victim - despite wearing hunters clothing. Gideon is sus and talks to Johnny, and he’s so pathetic.

Paul is IRATE looking for Bobbi now. Bobbi is hiding in a tree, and when Paul comes down below her, she jumps on him and stabs him in the back. She runs away, but he’s still in pursuit, disputing having been stabbed. He shoots at her but misses, but before he can shoot again the BAU swarm him and shoot. Bobbi survives. Prentis has troubling reconciling how they (the BAU) is any different than these hunters while on the plane...and that is the end of the episode!

Rating Criteria:

Criminal/serial killer: 20/20
Forensics/context: 17/20
Character development/character arcs: 15/20
Script writing: 18/20
Background characters: 20/20

Overall: 90/100

S2E21 - “Open Season”

S2E22 - “Legacy”

S2E20 - “Honor Among Thieves”