S2E9 - “The Last Word”
We open in a park in St Louis Missouri, so we know something bad is about to go down whenever children are in the opening. We see a couple playing with their child who is wearing a truly hideous hat. The parents are very casually talking about having another child, and asking “Katie” if she’d want a little sibling. The three of them go separate ways for a moment, as the mom says “you go get her, and Ill go get lunch”. Daddy runs after the daughter, and mommy goes to a very ostentatious picnic basket and set up. She has only been there a moment when a man who looks like a very masculine looking Billy Eichner approaches her looking for his daughter “Molly”; he’s really distressed and asks Mom if she has seen Molly. He says they had been playing hide and seek and she got “lost in the trees”. Then he says he heard something and walks further into the woods, causing Mommy to follow him. He holds up a sweater and then knocks Mommy’s lights out - punching her in the face.
Cut and we now see a little boy waking his mother up. Its 10pm and she’s asking if he’s already eaten. This mom is a bit...sexy, and she leaves to go to work as he plays video games. Cut and we see her working the street - she’s a sex worker. She’s trying to find a client and we see her enter a dark alley, a man with a hidden face following. And then we hear gunshots.
Cut to Quantico, VA. Hotch is in his office and an Emily Prentiss walks into his office and introduces herself to him. We learn she went to Yale and has been working for the bureau for 10 years now. Hotch is like “what can I do for you?” and she’s like “I’m supposed to start here today at the BAU”, but Hotch is like “uh I didn’t approve this transfer” and basically saying there has been a mistake. Hotch dismisses Prentiss and then asks Gideon if maybe he did. They all abandon Prentiss and we cut to the board room or whatever as Gideon and JJ brief the team on what is going on in St. Louis. But even though they completely blow Prentiss off, we know she’s gonna be a part of the team because she’s in the opening credits sequence photo.
There are two serial killers. One abducts women from public places, and then dumps the bodies in the woods. Apparently the they BAU was contacted about this after the third murder, but now there might be up to 6. The first two were found near Mill Creek. The forest is 1.5 million acres so its hard to find them, the majority being wilderness.
8 victims - all sex workers. All tied to a serial shooter who is claiming responsibility. He’s contacted a reporter at the paper, meaning he isn’t getting the attention he believes he deserves - he calls himself “The Hollow Man”. but all of his victims don’t get attention because he kills sex workers. The Hollow Man and the Mill Creek Killer are competing with each other - committing a murder in response to one another.
We see the BAU on the Jet (ayo). And Reid shares some alarming statistics about active serial killers, and it is an “incredibly rare occurrence to have them operating in the same city” - it only having happened historically 3 times before now. Hotch talks about how serial shooters are typically loners, this guys’ victims are sex workers, so he could lack confidence with women or lack social skills. Sounds like we’ve heard this before! But also - there is no rape or signs of sexual assault, so Gideon suggests he is perhaps impotent. I love how it always comes down to penises. The gun gives him power. Doesn't want to touch the bodies with his hands. But the Mill Creek Killer - hunts during the day, targets educated middle class women. He’d have to look like them. These are polar opposites - much like their victims.
The BAU decides to split up and each focus in different areas, and Gideon tells JJ that when she goes to talk to the reporter to not talk about the Hollow Man, because they want to draw him out - so they need to act like he doesn’t exist. Morgan goes to visit the Mr. Carroll, husband of one of the victims. Morgan asks if his wife has any hobbies, and he says she was an avid runner and would participate in marathons. As well as her being a very trusting and outgoing person.
There is a spooky transition between one of the photographs of Mrs. Carroll and her body now covered in leaves in the woods. She is clearly dead. And UH OH, the unsub has arrived. He combs her hair and is gentle with her saying “I missed you” to her. He then puts lipstick on her lips. And says “you are so beautiful”. The camera cuts as he begins to go in for a kiss.
Hotch and Reid show up at a dark apartment and knock on a door. They are visiting Marcie Mitchell’s mother, and her kids who are running loose in the apartment. This is the apartment of the sex worker we saw get shot at the beginning of the episode. There are alcohol bottles around the apartment because Criminal Minds doesn’t like sex workers. Marcie’s mother talks about how cases like her daughter’s aren’t valued because society doesn’t care about sex workers. To me I find this conversation to be really conflicting, because it sounds like the writers are trying to be like “hey - sex workers are people! Just because society doesn’t value them doesn’t mean they aren’t important” but then at the same time they have her mother saying the line “She made bad choices but she was still a good person” and its like COME ON. being a construction worker has a super high mortality rate, but would we be like “well you know that’s the job?”
Cut to JJ at the local police department, and she sees how they have loads more information and evidence on the Mill Creek killer, and only ONE folder on the Hollow Man. The reporter who received the letter from the Hollow Man is worried he might be in danger because he was contacted, but JJ assures him that the Hollow Man is just looking for some recognition at this stage in the case, and is very unlikely to try to hurt the reporter for writing about the Mill Creek Killer. JJ tells him not to write anything.
BUT THEN. the police officers interrupt saying they found Ellen Carroll’s body. Cut to the crime scene, and they realize that she has been being pampered post-mortem. Gideon is like “he wants to be alone with her”. They talk about how sex acts with dead bodies is rather uncommon, but not entirely unlikely - Ted Bundy did it regularly. He has a need to defile the bodies, but also take care of them. So we now know he has a ritual - he comes back to them after dumping them. Cut and see the Hollow Man angrily reading the paper. Lol. he’s driving a taxi and we see him approach two sex workers - they say “we’re off duty just like you” and he just SHOOTS THEM DIRECTLY. They are up against a trash bin and he places the paper with the headlines about the Mill Creek killer in front of them. This is the first time he’s killed two women at once - but the BAU also talks about how they now know he is ANGY. and specifically ANGY enough to change his MO.
The reporter is upset and talking to JJ - he’s worried that his not writing about the Hollow Man is responsible for there being more deaths. I entirely understand where he is coming from with this. But JJ keeps assuring him that they very much do not know if his writing or not writing about him would actually prevent any more deaths - the media attention could possibly lead him to more deaths if anything.
Reid analyzes the handwriting and talks about how since he only sent it the letter to one person, it indicates that he isn’t confident enough to share it with the masses. He then goes on to say that emotional indicators are analyzed through slants. This writer writes in vertical narrow-lettered writing, which is apparently signs of repression(?) lol. And with the pressure, is excessively heavy - upright and prone to overreaction.
His connected writing - cursive, shows that he solves his problems in a practical and direct manner.
He uses simple statements, first person. Perhaps he has a job in solitude or stripes him of his individuality. Or he’s overqualified and doesn’t feel he gets enough appreciation.
We immediately cut into the BAU briefing everyone on the profile.
The Hollow Man:
He’s now killed two people at once with means he is
Unpredictable and dangerous.
He has no physical content with his victims, which means he will be much more difficult to catch.
Motivated by external pressures
He wants attention
But on the other hand, they have a lot more information on the MCK, specifically because he does spend a lot of time with his victims before and after he murders them.
MCK:
Because his victims willingly follow him in daylight, he must appear harmless and be handsome.
Gideon says “a woman wouldn’t follow him if he’s not handsome”
He has the social skills to trick people
He is smart
The ritual is the most important part - it “dominates his thoughts”
Driven by internal forces
Sexually motivated
Cut and we now see a young woman. She is outside with her bike, and she stops to put it on a bench??? And take a sip of water. While doing so, her cellphone (flip phones hell yeah) rings. She smiles and answers. She’s like “where are you?” and then hangs up. We then hear a man’s voice be like “ahem. hello” . she turns around and then the screen goes black and white, so you know she got got.
Cut and we hear JJ’s voice saying “Meredith Dale, 25.” we learn that that was the girl on the bike and she was supposed to be meeting a friend. We learn that she disappeared an hour ago, and its likely the MCK cause she is exactly her type. They guess he is likely hiding her body as they speak. Cut and we see MCK getting pulled over by a park ranger in the woods. He asks to inspect the car, and there is nothing in the back. The officer is like what are you doing, why don’t you have any water or supplies (he says he’s hiking) and he’s like “my boots are all i need”.
Cut and Morgan is talking about how he must know where to dump the bodies given how long it takes the rangers to find the bodies. Potentially he might work in the area. Either way, he’s very familiar with the woods. Garcia starts looking up what the ranger schedule looks like for the Mill Creek woods. The way the schedule works is that there are 6 like “districts” or sections of the woods, and each get patrolled every 3-5 days. So they are able to deduce which section he’ll be going to next because it was patrolled yesterday so it wont be revisited for another couple days. Additionally, its closest to the city so it’d be accessible enough for him to revisit her.
The police and a DOG named “Renny” or “Remy” find Meredith’s body. Gideon and Morgan are saying they need to not disturb her body or make it obvious that they were there because they want to stake the area out because they know he will revisit her, and that’s when they want to gettim. The pigs are not happy about this, but they comply. And dingdingding. They do! They catch him! BUT NO. ITS JIM MYERS THE REPORTER. There like wtf, and he says he got a letter from the Hollow Man that gave him INSTRUCTIONS on how and where to find the body. The Hollow Man basically ruins the whole plan, because helicopters come flying and now the news has its grubby hands on all the information.
Now the HM is on a high because he ruined everything for MCK, so now the question is: is he satisfied or rather, is he just getting started? Especially now that he’s injected himself into the investigation. But this also means he could become frenzied. Cut and we see MCK on the street in town, he approaches a woman and asks if he can “use her phone” because his car died and he forgot his. She is trying to find her phone in her purse when he’s like “You know what, forget the phone, maybe it’ll start for you?” and he’s like weeoooweeeoo “no that’s okay” and he’s all “no, come on”. And then he starts getting physical with her, and she resists and and he runs off as she screams for help.
Cut and the BAU is there and Gideon is like ‘WaS hE hAnDsOmE?’ and get further details on the encounter we just saw. So now we know he’s becoming irrational and violent. Morgan suspects he’s gonna drop the ruse entirely and just start snatching women at random. Back at the BAU Hotch is losing it trying to figure out how the HM knew where to find Meredith Dale’s body, and how he knew how to get MCK into a tizzy. Reid mutters “they say serial killers make the best profiles”. MGG is staring at the newspapers as Hotch is talking about how they must be significant, and Goobs figures it out - they are talking in the classifieds! They are using the names Sunny and Holden - characters from The Catcher in the Rye - a “widely accepted as a book loved by sociopaths”. Honestly accurate. It was quoted by Chapman after killing Lennon. So basically they were showing off to each other, but then the HM started getting resentful. So basically this is how HM knew where to find Meredith.
Garcia goes to look up if she can find out how they paid for the classifieds, but unfortunately they paid in cash so there is no name attached to anything. Reid begins imitating the language of the killers so he can put in an add posing as the HM writing a letter to MCK wanting to “share some of his art” and imitate his way of killing - saying “imitation is the highest form of flattery.”
Cut and we’re back in the woods and the BAU is putting on makeup on a young woman as she poses as a woman that could be MCK’s victim. They’re like “he’s gonna wanna get close to you?” and she’s like “wait what” - should’’t they have discussed this BEFORE she committed to doing this? So the BAU goes and hides and they cover her in leaves. And yes, the MCK shows up, and starts removing the leaves from this poor girls body. He touches her face - shouldn't he realize she’s alive? He starts getting ready to put lipstick on her when the police swarm him. The media and press is losing it as they escort MCK into the police station. JJ has a very specific script to follow when giving a press conference.
Gideon goes inside to talk to MCK. Gideon uncuffs him because he’s “uncomfortable”. Gideon is like ‘You’re an intelligent good looking man with an inflated ego who likes killing women”. And MCK is like “i see a distressed woman in the woods, I go to help her and I get...pounced on.” HELP HER? BY PUTTING LIPSTICK ON HER? WHEN SHE WAS COVERED HEAD TO TOE IN LEAVES?? Gideon starts talking about how he thought the Hollow Man would be easier to catch. This puts him on edge, but he denies his being the MCK. he says he thinks the MCK is an artist, but the HM has nothing special.
Gideon starts getting under his skin when he brings up how he would visit the bodies after killing them “if killing these women made you an artist, then what did going back to them after make you” (something along those lines?) and he starts to LOSE IT. telling Gideon to shut his mouth and not let the press know. He gets him to confess. “Yes I killed them, but you cant tell anyone I went back.” JJ gives a press conference saying how intelligent the MCK is, and dismissing the Hollow Man, saying they don’t care - she continuously disses it, saying it lacks elegance. This 100% pisses off the HM. The HM walks into the police station. It has a metal detector and he sets it off - he then grabs a gun from the officer on duty, and demands to see “him”. He 100% fell for the bait, being all “he told you to say those things about me!”. Per Morgan’s contract, he tackles the HM and he is also taken into custody.
Next the BAU is on the plane, and JJ sees that the story for the next day is a print out with photographs honoring the memory of all of the victims. They do not mention the shooter at all - not giving him the recognition or attention he so desperately craved. I believe it should always be this way.
At the end Prentiss is in Hotch’s office - where he’s like...how did you know? Why are you here? You cant just BE a profiler - giving it a whirl. She talks about a specific case and impresses him with her knowledge and ideas. She talks about how she belongs in this unit and wants to show him that. He agrees to look into it and see what possibly can be done about her joining.
Rating Criteria
Criminal/Serial Killer: 15/20
Character development/ character arcs: 15/20
Forensics/Context: 5/20
Script writing: 10/20
Background characters: 10/20
Overall: 55/100