S4E14 - “Cold Comfort”
It is raining. We see a list of missing and dead blondes – bad day to be a blonde. This is a different police department, and the head guy is being visited by Sandra Lambordini - the mother of one of the missing girls. Apparently, they had found the body of another girl in the woods, but it was not Brooke. Sandra asks if she can keep the necklace that belonged to Brooke – it had been found next to her body. She says “it could tell him things”
Next wee see Sandra visiting a psychic – he holds the necklace and has his eyes closed. He then – very dramatically looks.
Now we’re at the BAU and we see Garcia reading the horoscopes in the paper out loud. Prentis is very not into horoscopes and we learn that Prentis is a Libra!! LIBRAS REPRESENT. JJ joins them and she calls them into work. We see that Will and JJ got matching citrine rings. JJ briefs them on the four blonde blue eyed missing girls. Apparently they found one of them – they had been taken nine months ago, and not only was she found – she had been embalmed, so it is challenging to determine when she actually died. Additionally, she was found in a local park – a big seasonal hiking area.
On the Jet, Reid explains the embalming process. It takes special training and equipment – so this unsub has training. Prentis says shed rather be cremated, but more importantly it is strange that an unsub would want to emblem them. Morgan suggests abandonment issues – NO SHIT. Apparently Brooke is still missing, so that is the priority right now.
The local Washington police are in those same woods looking for Brooke. Given that he is embalming the victims, it is unlikely that they’d cut her up or anything, he cares for them too much to dismember them. They find another body in the mud.
Prentis and Hotch are looking in town; apparently Brooke had worked the closing shift the night she disappeared; it was an upscale rest. So he took her when she was leaving – a 11pm surprise attack. Her necklace was found on the ground next to her car, but Hotch cant look at this evidence because the mother gave it to the psychic we saw in the beginning. Apparently this psychic told her mother – according to a public broadcast, that she believes Brooke is still alive. The BAU disputes the credibility of psychics while watching the broadcast.
They go to visit Sandra – Brooke’s mother – and say that they think this unsub may be someone who knew Brooke personally; probably a loner would eat by himself. He wouldn’t have asked her out - instead he would have stared at her and made her uncomfortable.
The psychic says that he was doing “token object reading”. Rossi is very dismissive of this. He believes it is more of “false hope” although he doesn’t say this. JJ is a little more forgiving. The psychic says that she feels tired, weekend and heavy. Rossi pulls him aside and basically calls him a con man and tells him to fuck off. The psychic is like, well people don’t believe what you do either.
The cops found another body - a third. It isn’t Brooke. The cause of death was blood loss - they were all sedated but still alive when they were embalmed. Additionally, all of their hair was the same and ears double pierced. Although they were no signs of sexual assault, there were trace amounts of semen, suggesting he may have assaulted them after death.
Back at the police office, JJ says none of them had double pierced ears before. So he is “changing” them. Rossi continues to say that the psychic is a scam artist when JJ brings up them feeling “heavy”. Rossi tells Garcia to do a background check on the psychic.
And now we get the profile:
White man, mid to late 20s
Has money
Lives alone
Big enough space and venting space to accommodate embalming
Awkward with people especially women – an inability to relate socially is common in homicidal necrophile
Because of the alterations in the bodies, they believe the unsub is attempting to recreate a woman he once loved
Someone who died suddenly
This projection of the loved one coupled with the need to preserve the victims through embalming is similar to the psychopathology of the serial murderer Ed Gein
Oh good this fucker
Gein had the odedipal complex yeah yeah yeah thanks for the transphobia!
Much like Gein, the evolution from dead to live victims will be present in this unsub
So the BAU puts together a list of incident reports detailing inappropriate postmortem conduct, cadaver theft, and graveyard disturbances. And apparently 60% of necrophiles work in the death business, so they instruct the police to keep and eye on morgues, etc.
To the BAU goes and visits different places, interviewing guys who work at graveyards, etc. they strike out a lot, and then Hotch rolls up to what I’m assuming is a morgue? The person who performs autopsies? Hotch mentions that this unsub is dressing the bodies up, and thats when the mortician reacts – saying they had hired an apprentice a while back, he was odd and he paid the female cadavers a lot. He liked to do their make up and put wigs on them. Hotch is like WHAT IS HIS NAME.
They get the name and ask for a guy named Ivan. Ivan is like, well i cant let you in my mother is asleep. They berate him a bit, and theyre like, okay can you give us your DNA?
Garcia looks him up, he had been expelled from Evergreen State for assaulting his girlfriend- he would slip her tranquilizers and then have sex with her. Ew! So this sounds like him. But it isn’t, because according to his records he hasn’t had a job in years – and this unsub needs money for the drugs and the embalming equipment, so Hotch and Prentis tell the detective this probably isn’t the guy.
As the BAU is talking to the detective, JJ comes in and says a 911 call just came in from someone claiming to be Brooke.
We hear the call and she is whispering into the phone, saying she is being held prisoner. But they aren’t able to get and information pertaining to where she is. Rossi is like?? Are you sure she is dead??? Its hard to ID a whisper. Rossi and mommy get into it – saying that it could be a prank or someone just trying to get attention given how Sandra went public with this case on television; so Stanley Usher, the psychic has a vested interest in him being right about Brooke being alive. As Sandra is like, well maybe you just have a vested interest in her being dead, Rossi pulls out the info his colleague dug up, saying that he had been charged with fraud in Oregon. This gets Sandra to walk out in distress, and JJ scolds Rossi for taking away her hope.
Now we see Brooke asleep in a dark bed. A voice is calling her Abby and cutting her hair.
The BAU tries to trace the call, and Garcia attempts to triangulate it, but was unsuccessful; the unsub probably turned it off when he found Brooke with it. Rossi keeps being like IF SHES ALIVE. To which Hotch has to be like “Dave…I agree with you about psychics, but the fact is Sandra Lombardini positively identified her daughters voice.” They discuss the how and why Brooke is alive; just changing hair and makeup only takes a couple of hours, so why has he kept her alive for now five days? Maybe this is something deeper… So basically, he is trying to brainwash her; break her down into this “role” he’s putting on her. The more worn out she gets the more likely she is to comply with this.
We see the unsub beg her for a story? “Tell me a story, you know I cant sleep without a story”. She keeps insisting she isn’t Abby. she sees he cut her hair and pierced her ears and she is alarmed. She starts to freak out.
The psychic rolls into the police department. And Rossi is pissed because the detective asked to speak with him. He congratulates JJ in reference to her ring.
Back with “Abby” the unsub continues to beg for a story. She picks up “the troll bridge” and begins to read it out loud. And the unsub is like YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO VOICES. And then she basically knocks herself out with the rocking chair. Oh drama!
The police department arrests Ivan, and its cause he was crossing into Vancouver. They question him and show him the wig. Prentis and the detective do the questioning, and he claims he doesn’t know who these women are. He’s saying “you have the wrong” “the wrong necrophile” and IVAN SAYS “YOU THINK IM THE ONLY GUY IN TOWN WHO LIKES TO CRACK OPEN A COLD ONE?” i am. Screaming. He keeps insisting that he doesn’t know who the girls are. He says that the wig isn’t important, rather it is the shoes. He says he liked the local weather girl, she had died. He says “genuine article” and this phrase triggers Reid to have an idea. He realizes that the unsub probably dug up the body of the person he is trying to recreate, so he can put these genuine articles on the girls he’s kidnapping.
The grave that was robbed was a 26 year-old l girl named Abigail Hansen. She died suddenly from myocarditis, which is a heart defect. Garcia is able to find the names of her employers, and so the BAU reaches out to them. Now we see the unsub open the door separating Brooke and him, and hands her a dress. Uh oh!
So the BAU visits the fucking mansion of the house; apparently she was the au pair for this family. Makes sense. We see a photo of the boy and Abigail and she is wearing the same dress that the unsub handed Brooke. Apparently the son was with Abigail when she died. The parents had been on a cruise, and when they got back they found their son curled up on the floor next to her body. Well! She had been dead for 2-3 days. Apparently their son, Roderick dropped out of school at 21, took all the money from his trust fund, and hasn’t been in contact since, except for sending one letter.
Theres no paper trail on him at all. Reid tries to analyze the letter, but the only thing worth noting about it is that it is only addressed to his mother, not his father.
Now we see him dressing Brooke up; Brooke has cracked a bit. He gives her tea, and says “its the last time”. She drinks it all and she quickly starts to fade and get woozy. She passes out and he carries her onto a lab table of sorts?
JJ goes to Stanley and gives him the letter. Well! He says that Roderick is near water. JJ points out that the photo of Abby and Roderick is near water on Mercer island. Next Rossi comes in hot saying that his dad is still sending Roderick money. Hotch gets a location from Roderick’s dad (?).
We see that Roderick is now starting the embalming process on Brooke as she is passed out. The BAU rushes in, and stops him before he cuts her. And yay! She is still alive! The BAU saves the day! Rossi is like, this is as far from a rocky shoreline as you can get! But then Hotch points out hat there is one painted on a brick wall on the outside of the building. JJ and Rossi talk about how hard it is getting back; but JJ now is like..all i can think about is a woman losing her child.
Rating Criteria:
Criminal/Serial Killer: 10/20
Character development/ character arcs: 10/20
Forensics/Context: 10/20
Script writing: 17/20
Background characters: 17/20
Overall: 54/100