We open with shots of a city, and a lady being attacked. We see a man get out of a car and enter a fancy restaurant, while Frank Sinatra plays in the background. He sits down and meets with a lady named Lorraine. He apologizes and lays it on thick – as she calls him out on that. We see scratch marks on his hand – and we see that he was the one attacking the lady from the beginning. He spaces out a minute, and she calls him out on ignoring her. She says she is his client too.

Cut and we see JJ meeting with a guy – they have a composite sketch of him, but unfortunately this man is good at keeping a low profile. JJ introduces Agent Russell to the rest of the team; he is a part of the white collar crime unit. Russell says he has been following this con artist for years, however, they believe that he has killed a woman. Carla Marshall was found dead in her home, and they believe she may have been killed because the week before she contacted a fraud website to report a scam, and he spoke to her on the phone. He told her to cease all communications with the guy and he would assist, but she was then killed the night after making the phone call. There were no signs of forced entry, theft, or sexual assault, so judging from the MO it was personal. Apparently this guy’s hustle is investment fraud. He’s been a prolific scammer for 14 years, but he has never been violent before.

Morgan shares that calling them cons is generous because they profile as psychopaths, and Reid shares that they see their cons as theatre, and themselves as a kind of puppeteer who have to have absolute control over their victims and their cons. So now the question is how much is he spiraling, and how much control is he losing.

On the BAU jet, Agent Russell is like omg you guys have your own jet? They talk about the countermeasures this guy is using, and Russell shares that a lot of it is prepaid phones, credit cards, foreign bank accounts, etc, fake IDs. JJ asks why they haven’t tracked his accounts overseas, but apparently it takes months to do that. Apparently Carla was suspicious was because she needed to get her father into a retirement home and when she called Grant Dale (the conman) to free up her money, he never returned her calls. This tracks because according to Morgan, a con man’s first instinct is flight not fight, however it is also interesting because like, what made him kill? Rossi points out that what makes him kill isn’t financial, it is psychological, so that is what they all need to concentrate on.

Now is the time to point out that agent Russell Goldman is being a little sus; while Hotch is giving out assignments to the team Goldman wants to work with Hotch, but Hotch is like haha fuck off, so that doesn’t happen. At the police station in Miami, the team sees the amount of case files that Goldman has on this fella and it is an insane amount. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes. The team starts unpacking the case files, and it is a daunting task.

Prentis goes to the crime scene, and sees that Carla was a real estate agent. Goldman shares with Prentis that he believes the unsubs real name could be a form of William. Prentis asks about how most of Unsubs victims were very wealthy, but Carla doesn’t have a crazy mansion or anything. Goldman also says that Carla did not invest as much money as some of this other victims. So why did he target her to begin with? Perhaps she had some other use to him. Morgan calls Russell and Prentis over to show them something on a computer. He set up a website for himself, and it is only one page. It has generic investment information; no photos of himself. It is very standard, and selling the fantasy of success. Morgan sends it to Garcia and asks her to do a search for a website with the same content. 9 identical websites; all exactly the same, just different names.

We get a flashback of Carla calling him out on not being named Grant Dale, and him strangling her.

Back at the Miami PD, Rossi talks about how the CIA assigns an agent 2 or 3 aliases at most, because anymore than that makes it complicated. However, this guy has more than 10, so he is probably wearing thin. JJ comes in and says she has Carla’s phone records; turns out she had been calling the number of a disposable cellphone numerous times, and sometimes those phone calls were made at “like bedtime late” hours of the day – so maybe something hanky panky was going on? Because you don’t do business with your investment manager at bedtime.

Cut and now we see him getting dressed in the morning with the lady he had met with for dinner. She mentions she has a husband, so clearly there is some sort of affair going on. He gets a little spooked because she says some of the same things Carla had said, but he is able to play it off.

Back at Miami PD, Prentis asks if Carla had ever mentioned anything about having an affair, but Russell is like no, and it is hard to get fraud victims to be super forthcoming because they are already embarrassed about being duped. That checks out. While comparing notes with Goldman, it looks like they have very similar findings. After San Diego, it looks like the victims/affinity groups did not have much in common – so how and why was he targeting the people he was.

We see our unsub meeting with a guy on a boat; as he walks up to the boat he keeps repeating over and over that his name is Randy, however, when his victim is writing out the check he asks for how his name is supposed to be spelled, and our unsub does a fuck up and says “M-o-f-f-a-t, Henry Moffat” to which the victim is like “who tf?”. He tries to play it off by saying it is his partner, but the guy doesn’t buy it, and gets intense. Our unsub is like- “there’s a simple explanation” and grabs the whisky glass next to him and just starts beating the living shit out of the guy.

The BAU is at the crime scene the next morning. It is overkill, and the unsub is clearly devolving, but he may not realize that. The wife of the deceased says she has known Randy for a while, and she was the one who brought him into their lives. JJ asks if there was anything “more” to the relationship, and she admits that there was an affair going on. He is using his looks and charm to target the women.

Now we see the unsub cutting up the ID for randy. But! While doing so a little kid yells out “daddy!” and comes running to him. He says hello, gives the kid a hug, and says hello to his wife as well. It seems as if the wife and kid have no idea what the actual occupation Bill has is. Bill’s wife is upset because he wants them to move, but the wife does not want them to move, especially because their kid, JD, is just making friends

And now we get the profile:

A white-collar conman who embodies what behaviorists call the dark triad – narcissism, Machiavellianism, and aberrant self-promotion.
- Everything revolves around this guy, he manipulates and exploits others using dishonest tactics, and he has become a menace to society.
He is what they call a Casanova conman, he seduces women to get their money. It is standard behavior for him to have casual sex with multiple partners, and use that as a weapon to accomplish his goals.
He frequents high end venues, country clubs, hotel bars, and membership-only establishments.
He is constantly opening and closing bank accounts, and moving money.
He has too many alias in his head right now, it is causing him to fracture mentally. It is this loss of control that is causing him to be violent and dangerous to be around.
Any additional stress will make him more likely to attack.

Now we see Bill meeting with another lady. She is saying how she doesn’t have to wait this long to see him, she could always fly to where he is. We learn that this is also an affair going on with her, and she asks him to stay the night, but he kind of blows her off. She also offers to leave her husband, which stresses him out. He gets a phone call, and it is the lady from the beginning asking him for their check back. He gets another call on his other cell, and it is wife wife telling him she needs to pick up JD because her car broke down. He is an asshole to all of these women, and starts losing his cool. The lady from inside the house comes up to him and says that she is pregnant. Oh jesus. And it is his!

Back at the PD, Reid shares that he spoke to some of his victims, and before he was in San Diego he drove sports cars, but after, sedans. Before san Diego he lived in bachelor pads, but now after it is gated communities with yards. They realize he must have a family, and if they can find the wife, they can find the unsub. Especially since, if she is not involved in his crimes, she is still using her real name.

We see the unsub meeting up with the lady from the beginning. He got drinks with her, and I’m like what about his kid? He walks her over to the car, but opens the trunk, and she’s like “you pressed the wrong button?” Now we see him driving with his kid, and he is telling JD that they can stay, and they wont need to move. But then there are some thumping noises coming from the trunk. Ah, so he dumped the lady in back there. We see that she has blood on her head, and then we se that he beats her to death again with the tire iron and then continues to drive off.

The next day they find her body on the side of the road. They realize that it is weird he hasn’t left town, maybe it is because his family lives in Fort Lauderdale. Garcia looks into it. Now we see Bill arguing with his wife because she doesn’t seem happy about them enabling them to stay and not have to move.

Now Rossi and JJ meet with the bank manager of the bank Lorraine Horton used. We learn that Lorraine recently sold a house, and Carla was a real estate agent. So maybe that is how he finds his victims? Garcia calls in and shares that Carla was connected to all of the victims. She was able to give them a list. Garcia also shares that she may have fund the wife of the unsub. And she works in real estate. Rebecca Hodges, son, and her husband William Hodges.

But before the BAU tracks them all down, Rebecca Hodges tracks Bill’s mistress down. She knocks on the door of the pregnant lady, and calls her out. But the mistresses also reveals she didn’t even know that his name was bill.

Bill is at the bank now and he’s starting to lose it. We see Bill pick his son up and he says that they are going to go to Boston. Prentis and Goldman roll up to the Hodges school, with Morgan right behind, however, they get there before Bill does, so he sees them in the neighborhood. He calls his wife because she isn’t home.

Rebecca and Brooke Sanchez are talking, and Rebecca ignores the call. Garcia looks up Rebecca’s cellphone, but she has two active in the area. And they realize that the other phone must be Brooke Sanchez’s??? Weird. At the home, Brooke tells Rebecca how they vacationed together, and Rebecca is absolutely flabbergasted that her husband has been cheating on her. While this is happening, Bill walks in to the house, and see them sitting together. So he’s in trouble. To make matters worse, JD runs in as well. Meltdown.

The BAU rolls up to the house, and Bill walks out with JD. but when he gets outside, the BAU is there. Bill sends JD over to his mom, and they try to apprehend him, but he reaches for a pocket, which results in him being shot. He was reaching for a lighter? So that is traumatic for everyone.

Rebecca comes back to the PD and is shocked to learn all of this about her husband. Russell is upset because he thought he had a weapon, and Prentis says that it was a justified shot. He chose his own fate. And Russell is all, “I never even learned his real name.” And I’m like- we did!

Rating Criteria:

Criminal/Serial Killer: 20/20

Character development/ character arcs: 16/20
Forensics/Context: 20/20
Script writing: 15/20
Background characters: 20/20

Overall: 91/100

S5E14 - “Parasite”

S5E15 - “Public Enemy”

S5E13 - “Risky Business”