S4E13 - “Bloodline”

We open in Alabama. We see a family driving in an old timey car. Like, one of those cars you see in the gangster movies. The father is driving, the mother is in the passenger seat, and the son is in the back of the car. It’s night, and they pull up in front of a darkened house. The father says: “Come on son, it’s time.”  And when the son still seems reluctant, his mother asks what’s wrong. And the son says: “What if she doesn’t like me?” And the mother and father exchange a knowing look. The mother reassures: “Let her get to know you, there’s no rush.” The father then asks the son if this is really what he’s worried about. And the son replies: “Do I have to meet her this way?” And the father says: “We’ve been talking about this moment your whole life.” And the mother adds: “You’re almost 10. You’re becoming a man.”

They get out of the car, the father has tape, and the mother has a plastic bag full of pieces of glass. It looks like beach glass, big shards in different colors. The family rushes towards the house, and the mother starts sprinkling glass in front of the door. And initially we think, well maybe this is there house. Maybe she’s just exterior decorating. And the door has windowpanes on it, so the father smashes those in, reaches his arm in, puts tape on his hand, almost like a tape glove, and opens the door with his tape hand, not leaving any fingerprints. And then we’re like, okay, so this is the family abduction episode.

Cut to BAU Headquarters in Quantico, VA. Alabama is asking the BAU for help. We learn that a mother and father were murdered in their home while they were sleeping, and their 10-year-old daughter is now missing. Their bodies were discovered less than an hour ago, but they were killed around 1am. We all know that most abducted children don’t survive past the initial 24 hours, so the BAU is on the case.

Cut to the interior of an RV. Actually, we’re inside a closet in side of the RV. We see a nervous girl standing inside, looking around helplessly. There is some dramatic fiddle music playing. Kind of pseudo-Balkan inspired atmospheric fiddle music. The closet is one of those utility closets with slotted doors, and we can see on the other side of the door is the boy from before. We pull back and we see the boy’s mother and father watching the boy watch the girl in the closet. She begs him: “Please let me go, I won’t tell.” The boy turns to his parents, looking for reassurance, and they reassure him. He opens the closet door and offers the girl water. And she drinks it. The boy turns to his parents and asks them if he can decide now. And they’re like, sure man, we don’t care, this is your show. The boy turns to the girl and says: “I’m gonna call you… Elena.”

Cut to the BAU private jet. Agent Todd shares the crime scene photos with the rest of the team. We learn about Jeff and Nancy Hale, the parents who were murdered in their home, their throats were slashed. Reid notes that slitting someone’s throat is quick and efficient. And Prentis says: “That’s because the real target is down the hall” And Agent Todd responds: “She has a name. She’s not ‘the target’. Her name’s Cate. She’s 10 years old.” We learn that the man who discovered the bodies was Cate’s biological father, a man named Jim Scheuren. But the police are not considering him a suspect.

Cut to the crime scene. We’re actually in Harvest, Alabama. Rossi and Morgan go to the Hale crime scene. We meet Bo Whitaker, he’s a local cop with one heck of an accent. The house is in the middle of nowhere, which means that the Hales must have been targeted directly. Rossi remarks how remote everything is and Bo says: “Even in broad daylight, walk 5 feet of the track, a man can get lost for days.” And Rossi says: “I prefer cities- you can see them coming.”

In Cate’s room Morgan doesn’t see a struggle, which is strange. In Nancy and Jeff’s bedroom, Rossi and Morgan further discuss the order of events. Was Jeff killed first because he was the biggest threat? At the Alabama PD headquarters, Agent Todd discusses the Hale’s autopsy with Prentis. Jeff Hale the cause of death was a single smooth, deep cut. Nancy Hale’s death was caused by a series of jagged stab wounds. The BAU the realizes that multiple unsubs must be responsible. We learn from Morgan that multiple unsubs heightens the chance of Cate’s survival. Because each unsub will want to spend more time with her?? The answer is not satisfactory. I wonder what my personal friend Dr. Richard Rappaport would have to say about that!

Hotch interviews Cate’s father Jim. He’s someone who is clearly struggling with alcoholism and depression. He’s not the unsub, but he does tell the BAU that his daughter Cate has epilepsy. And she doesn’t have her medicine. 

Cut back to the RV. The boy’s father puts bells in his pocket, and the boy attempts to try to remove the bells without them ringing. And of course he can’t do it, so he gets frustrated. Meanwhile, in the closet, Cate, stressed out from the ordeal, has a seizure. When the family sees this, the father tells them that Cate is “no good”. The mother wants to help Cate, but the father warns them not to touch her. The father pulls out a dagger and the mother gets very upset: “We don’t kill young girls!” She tells him. The father then says: “This is MY family!” He holds the dagger out to his son. And the mother pushes the dagger away and says: “Well then YOU kill her!”

Cut and we see the RV stopped on the side of the road. The boy and his father dump what we must assume is Cate’s body into a ditch. She’s wrapped in a blanket. It’s…terrible.

Cut to, the next morning- and Cate’s alive! She climbs up the embankment on the side of the road. Her hands and knees are bound, but she makes it up, and she rushes into the middle of the road, and an oncoming car screeches to a stop and almost hits her. Cut and we’re at the hospital- Cate is okay! Prentis goes to interview Cate, but she’s warned that seizures often come with retrograde amnesia, so Cate may have holes in her memory. Cate’s father Jim is at the hospital, and he’s really cleaned himself up. He does not appear to be drunk, and he’s reluctant to leave his daughter’s side as she recovers. But Cate tells him it’s okay to leave, and he does. Hotch later tells Jim that if the paramedics were not alerted to Cate’s epilepsy, she would have died when they brought her in.

Prentis does a cognitive interview with Cate. And we learn that the father is the one who actually abducted Cate, meaning that the mother and the boy were the ones who killed Cate’s parents. But the BAU doesn’t know any of this, I’m just telling you this. Cate tells Prentis about the RV interior, she tells her that the unsubs have taken her shoes and Prentis says: “That’s so you can’t run.” Cate tells Prentis about the boy and his parents, and how they want her to play with him, but she doesn’t want to go. She tells Prentis about the bells, she calls them fairy bells. She also says the closet has clothes and tinfoil in it. We also hear the mother call the boy “Puyule”, which Prentis things is a Romanian term for endearment.

Rossi and Morgan go to interview a local RV park owner, and we learn that the unsubs definitely stayed at this RV park. I’m not sure how Rossi and Morgan found this specific RV park, or if they were just guessing, but they struck gold. The owner tells them that the family was Eastern European, and that their campsite was covered in broken glass when they left, and she was annoyed because she had to clean it up. As Rossi and Morgan inspect the site Rossi says: “Jordan was right, you know, on the plane. We hide behind language, we don’t talk about what we actually see.” And Morgan says: “We can’t do this job if we let it get to us.”

Back at Alabama headquarters, the BAU discuss how this family has seemingly ritualized killing together. Reid mentions that if the family is Eastern European, the spreading of glass could be a superstition for good luck. Reid tells the rest of the team that he believes the unsubs are Romany, or at least someone who has “perverted Romany culture.”

Garcia has already looked for abductions and murders similar to the Hale family, and couldn’t find any. Reid asks her to cross-reference petty crimes such as thefts with when Romany populations are in the area?? And Garcia is like Romany? And Rossi says: Gypsies. And Garcia says: “As in Gypsies, tramps and thieves?” Trash! Also the BAU inform us all that whatever ritual this family was trying to carry out has failed, which means they will have to try again. 

Cut to the family staked out in a parking lot, looking for their next target. And The Boy chooses another girl to McFreaking Kidnap!

And now we get a profile…

• The unsubs we’re looking for are a family: A father, a mother, and a son approximately 10 years old

• They are believed to be of Romanian descent

• The family travels in an RV, but they also have another vehicle that they use to go back and forth between campsites and cities

• Area RV parks should be called and asked to be on the lookout for a family that fits this description, as well as a campsite that might have broken glass scattered around.

• The breaking of the glass and the discarding of Cate Hale because of her epilepsy leads them to believe that the unsubs are highly superstitious people, and they are playing out a very specific ritual.

• The focus of this ritual is the young girls.

• From the location of Cate Hale’s house, they don’t come across these girls by accident. They study; they hunt.

• Look at parks, malls, concentrate on those that are an easy drive from the RV parks

As this profile is given, we see the family abducting the girl from the parking lot they were scoping out earlier. Except it looks like the boy and the son are the ones killing the parents this time, the mother must be the one actually abducting the girl?

Garcia interrupts the profile to advise the BAU that ruh-roh Houston we have a problem! She went further back looking for similar cases, and she also made the perimeters national. She found 30 hits across the United States, going back as far as 1909. All of these girls were abducted and their parents were killed. Large swaths of time exist between each crime, so it was never flagged as serial. Morgan says that it looks like it has been going on for generations.

Now we’re in Madison, Alabama, at the most recent crime scene. And we don’t learn the name of the family? The parents names aren’t given and neither is the little girl’s? Everyone shows up at this crime scene. And special guest star Assorted Broken Glass makes another appearance! Rossi says: “We got lucky with Cate Hale. The epilepsy saved her life. If this new girl fits the unsub’s needs, we might have lost our window to catch them for years.” Reid and Morgan discuss why, if the goal is to abducted the girls, the parents have to be killed at all. And Morgan tells Reid that if the parents are dead, there’s no family left to keep the case momentum up. The cases just go cold!

Garcia calls with some fucking news! The blanket that was used to wrap Cate Hale had a hair on it that Garcia ran through the database, and she got a hit. The hair belongs to Kathy Gray- one of the 30 girls who were abducted! She went missing in 1971 in Vienna VA, and her parents were murdered. And we realize that Kathy is the Momma Unsub! The abducte become the unsub! Agent Todd is- distressed. She says: “So these little girls were abducted. And later kidnapped other girls and killed their families?” Rossi says: “I think this is why these unsubs pick little girls the same age as the boy- they’re making wives.”

Cut to the nameless little girl who was just abducted. She’s in the unsub’s car crying, and Mama Unsub is comforting her. We see Papa and Son Unsub lighting the RV on fire. They then get into the car and drive off. The ritual is complete.

Garcia tells the BAU that the working theory in 1971 was that a transient killed the Gray family and abducted Kathy. Which is also TRASH! Hotch asks Garcia to digitally alter Kathy Gray’s photograph to simulate what she would look like today. She does and it’s… creepy.

Reid, Morgan and Rossi get a report of an RV on fire- and they show up at the crime scene. Morgan, who is the only one really working the case this entire episode, points out that burned clothes found at the crime scene still have their store security tags on them. Reid points out that Cate Hale mentioned being locked in a closet with clothing and tinfoil, and tinfoil is used to negate security sensors. Apparently people line their bags with it? And Rossi says: “Makes sense, a lot of Romany make their living as petty thieves.” FUCK OFF!

We also learn about the school of 7 bells. Morgan, the never-ending fountain of information, tells us: “Dress a mannequin, you line his suit with 7 bells, if you can pick his pocket without a bell ringing, you’re ready to work a crowd.” We finally learn that the abducted girl’s name is Lynne Robillard.

The BAU then make the leap that the family is probably back out on the streets, shoplifting?? And I guess they’re right? Even though they have just abducted Lynne, the whole family is out for a day at the mall. The boy sees a wanted poster for his mother, and shows his parents. We then see Momma Unsub aka Kathy Gray walking out of a store, and alarms go off, and the police apprehend her. But Hotch is upset: “They’ve been stealing for years and have never been caught, this was too easy. “

Prentis and Hotch try to good cop / bad cop Kathy Gray. But it’s not really working. She tells Prentis to stop calling her Kathy, she says her name is Sylvia. Prentis says: “They stole your life! Let me help you get it back.” Hotch yells at Kathy and she says: “That little girl is better off with my son then any other boy that she could’ve met in your society.” Hotch shows her pictures of the Hales and Robillard family, and she doesn’t respond. And then Hotch shows her photos of her parents, the Grays, shows her their crime scene. And he physically pushes her down on the table and makes her look at the pictures which I am very uncomfortable with. Hotch tells her that her future husband slit her mother’s throat, just like her son killed Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Robillard. Prentis then tells her that she’s “just a breeder”. And this woman needs to ask for her lawyer. Why does she not have a lawyer present??

Rossi then comes in with a list of “known fences” in the area. Because they assume that Papa Unsub is going to try to make money by selling some of the clothes they stole at the mall. And Hotch is once again Mr. Aggressive and starts shouting the names at Kathy Gray who, again, is a victim here. Finally, Kathy Gray gets up angrily, and the BAU are like, okay, so this is the fence they used.

Kathy tells the BAU that she’ll tell them where the boy and Lynne are, but only if they let her see her son. The BAU arrest Papa Unsub. As he’s being taken into custody he says: “In history, warriors invaded towns and killed the men, women and boys, but kept the girls for themselves. You exist because your ancestors did what was needed for you to survive!”

Cut back to Alabama headquarters, he BAU has taken Lynne and The Boy into custody. Lynne is fine. Prentis keeps her promise, and lets Kathy Gray see her son. She tells him: “It’s just you now, you’re gonna be strong.” And then she tells him something in Romanian and the BAU separate them. Good news for Lynne- her aunt and uncle are on their way from Birmingham to pick her up. But bad news for the BAU, the translation of what Kathy told her son comes back. And it says: “Don’t tell them about your brothers.”

Cut to… another car… outside a house at night. It’s another old timely gangster car. The father is driving, the mother in the passenger, seat, and the boy in the back. The father stops the car and turns to his son. “You’re almost 10,” he says, “you’re becoming a man. Are you ready?” And the mother says: “I love you, pulyule.”

Agent Todd tells the team that JJ will be at her desk by the time they get back to Quantico. And Hotch says: “She has 3 more weeks of maternity leave.” And Agent Todd says: “I know, but she’s dying to be back. And honestly, I’m… ready to get back to counter terrorism. It’s… where I’m needed. May I say something. This team is like a family. And families take on the traits of their leaders. You don’t show much emotion. I’ve sat at JJ’s desk and I’ve looked at some of the worst things I’ve ever seen, just trying to do half her job. I hope you don’t take her for granted.”

Rating Criteria:

• Criminal/Serial Killer: 20/20

• Character development/ character arcs: 18/20

• Forensics/Context: 7/20

• Script writing: 15/20

• Background characters: 19/20

Overall: 79/100