S5E2 - “Haunted”

We open with a sepia filter on, and a little kid running outside. Like SPRINTING. We can hear someone saying “come on you can make it! Come on come on!”

Now we see a twitchy guy in line at a pharmacy waiting to pick up medication, however, the pharmacist says that she doesn’t have any refills available for him. Girl, he is NOT doing too hot, give it to him. He starts yelling “make it stop!” and then causing a scene – pushing things off the shelves, and getting belligerent. One of the store employees comes over trying to calm him, however, unfortunately this employee is holding a knife? A box cutter? And the man grabs it from him and starts cutting people, eventually getting a gun from a cop and going to town with that as well. 

Cut tot eh BAU and apparently Morgan has been pacing back and forth in front of Hotch’s office for like an hour. Rossi is like, Morgan, stop he’s not here yet. Apparently Emily is picking him up, despite the fact that Hotch has been cleared to drive. We learn that Hotch has had a month – 34 days to be precise – off, but Morgan is worried that wasn’t long enough. Morgan is worried he has PTSD, and just isn’t ready to come back. Foyet is still out there, which Morgan thinks means Hotch will be distracted; however, Rossi thinks it will motivate him. 

Now we see Reid and Garcia. Reid has crutches – which we knew was gonna be happening, and digs a little at Garcia since she got Hotch cookies for his return and nothing for Reid. Reid is like, you know Hotch is gonna act like nothing has happened; especially since Reid says he doesn’t think he’s ever even seen Hotch blink. They are both worried about him. JJ comes in and says they need to grab their go bags. The news on TV is covering the attack in the pharmacy, and they will all be heading to Louisville to find this unsub who has allegedly gone on the lam. 

Now we see Prentis picking up Hotch. He immediately goes into asking Prentis about the case; she says all they know so far is that none of the victims have anything in common. During this exchange we see that Hotch has Foyet’s casefile open, and as they are leaving, he has set up a thorough security system in his apartment. 

On the BAU jet, JJ briefs them a little more. They all welcome Hotch back, but it feels super awkward. We learn that Carl – the unsub – has no drivers license, so he is a little tricky to track. And given his face is everywhere, it is unlikely he will engage in public transportation. Hotch is real insistent they find the stressor; Garcia shares that he just lost his job, and he had been working at a factory since 1990. He had been making appliances, but never had any sort of promotion. Garcia also shares that he’s “of the hermit variety”, so he has no familial connections: nothing to live for. So why has he not killed himself yet? Reid suggestions he “hasn’t finished yet”, and Hotch is saying he must have anger and is lashing out for some reason. 

We get an Emily Dickinson quote; about haunting. Its sexy. 

Now at the police station, we have a cop point at an extremely prop-looking map with a circle on the checkpoint radius. There are photos of him everywhere, and the police went to his apartment to dig up as much on him as possible. Reid points out that it is interesting since most spree killers are aggressive, however, looking at the security footage of Darren Call at the pharmacy, he is acting defensively. The Kentucky cop tries to be like “well there’s nothing defensive about that” while they all watch the tape, and JJ has to “well actually” him; since he doesn’t stab until he is touched. Reid also points out that Call didn’t go into the pharmacy with a weapon. 

At the apartment, Prentis points out that even though Call’s apartment is only 5 min from the pharmacy, there is no sign that he returned home to wash off the blood. They notice that he made his bed very neatly; they speculate if he was military, but there was no record of it. Rossi suggests maybe he was hospitalized so they make a note of asking Garcia to look into that. Regardless, he likely has a pretty specific daily routine. 

Back at the crime scene, Hotch and Morgan talk to the pharmacist who was working when it all went to shit. She shares that he’s always been really normal up until this happened; she also shares that he used to be on thiothixene, but now his prescription is for alprazolam. I don’t know what either of those are supposed to do, but i’m sure we shall find out soon enough! Ah! So antipsychotic! He’s been off for about a month though. Hotch is like, girl why didn’t you tell us this to begin with. He asks her about who his doctor is, but when she says she doesn’t remember Hotch gets err, terse. He calls Garcia and is also really stern with her. Uh oh! Grumpy Hotch! Asking why she didn’t have his medical info yet. 

Now we see Darren Call at a therapists office? He rolls in during the middle of a session and asks for pills. I’m assuming its his therapist. Turns out he is off pills because he wants to remember. However, Darren is having an episode and saying he wants it to stop. 

Back at the apartments, Rossi and Emily ask about who his doctor is; and the team all starts to zoomie over to the therapists office. Darrnen is having an absolute meltdown, and takes his shirt off. The other patient int he office decides to be a valiant hero for a moment and sort of runs at Darren, which makes no sense, and Darren immediately slices and dices him. When the BAU arrives however, the office is empty except for the body of the other patient and the therapist. Hotch walks out defeated as hell, and Rossi and Emily are very surprised by this. 

They suspect that Call went to the office for a specific reason or something. Rossi notices that Call took his file from the office. Garica calls Morgan and while on the phone with him shares that she did some more digging on our unsub Darren Call and realized that he “didn’t exist” – like from 1969 to 1975 there is absolutely no record of him; no birth certificate, no social security, etc, nothing until he was 6 years old, however they also have no idea if he was abandoned or not. 

Hotch and Prentiss notice he was blinking while on the video; Hotch is beating himself up for not having noticed it before, given that it is a sign of long-term antipsychotic use. Rossi approaches them and tells them Garcia has info for them. Over a conference call, Garcia shares that in 1975, a six year old Darren Call was found roaming the middle of nowhere and picked up and taken in by the state, however, he doesn’t know or remember anything prior to having been taken in. Additionally, he was never claimed by anyone. JJ suggests that maybe he wasn’t from the area. 

Now we see Darren outside alone and reading his file. We also learn that he is wearing Cipalla’s clothing now, and most likely not lucid. 

In the Police headquarters, the cop they are working with asks about the timeline the BAU has made of Darren. We see that it is recorded he left Louisville three times, but always came back within the same 10 mile radius. The cop asks about this and Reid explains that people often are drawn to the scene of their first trauma. We learn also that he has been hospitalized twice at different points in his life. The cop brings up the fact that he doesn’t drive, so why would he be walking all the way out of Louisville? Rossi is just like “he’s desperate.” Garcia shares that he has been on like, all the medications. However, the doctor was weaning him off, and he must have a good reason for that. 

We see Call look at his file and there is tons of words like TRAUMA. NEGLECT. Bad stuff. Now we see Call following some kids outside. 

We also learn that he was physically abused as a kid – so was he escaping an abusive situation or did he escape being kidnapped? The cop brings up an unsolved case of some kids being murdered, and there like hmm, maybe that’s it! But who knows. Apparently this case was called Hollow Creek Killer, three bodies were found and others not found. A 12 yo boy named Tommy and came back “a different kid” (he survived). The suspect was a white man in his 30s. Hotch requests that Garcia look and see what she can find about Tommy now. All while this is happening we also get some more sepia-toned flashbacks of Call as a kid. 

We see Call approach a house with a sign outside called the Sterner House, and there are kids playing outside. Hotch suspects he may be going here since this is “where he became Darren Call”. Darren approaches the house and asks for “a nice man named Mr Curetan” and says he needs to see him. Unfortunately, it turns out this guy retired a long time ago, so he isn’t there. Call snarls “well where did he go?” and starts screaming and getting belligerent when the lady says she doesn’t know. She tells the kids go go back inside and asks him to leave, but he’s already starting to go cuckoo bananas and hallucinate seeing a different person. A kid runs up the porch near him, but the lady pulls him aside. Darren thinks he knows the kid and is like “come on we gotta go!” grabbing him, but the lady also grabs him, turning this into a little tug of war moment. Somehow Darren has a knife and swipes at the lady cutting her arm. She screams and grabs her arm letting the kid go, so he runs off with the kid. Idk why the kid is complying, but whatever. 

The BAU is at the scene of this crime, and apparently he called the kid Tommy. The lady told the BAU that she thinks his reflection is what set him off. 

The police have already started putting up roadblocks, etc, however Hotch doesn’t think it is going to work. Hotch says he is reinventing his past; he now remembers everything. Hotch is saying that they don’t need the extra man power (the police) and rather they just need study the crimes (he is hung up on Foyet). Now we see Darren driving a truck – even though he has never driven before! He keeps telling “tommy” they are going to make it. 

Now the BAU is studying the crimes. They get a call from Garcia and she found Tommy. They go visit him and he’s like, uh, no, I was the only survivor. Hotch does not fuck around, and is like, so uh you have issues with abandonment? You’re an alcoholic. Turns out tommy did leave a 6 yo behind; he clearly has internalized the guilt a ton. He says that Darren never talked, and now we get a flashback. 

Tommy and Darren are in a weird garage looking place. Tommy directing him on how to grab some keys, and handed them to tommy who was locked away, while their capture was sleeping. But he woke up before they could escape, and drove them outside. He threatened the kids with a knife, and had Darren gran a shovel. Tommy grabs the shovel from the guy and they take off. But while they are running away Darren has troubling hurtling a fence and tommy runs away, leaving Darren behind, Darren yelling “run tommy, run!” 

Prentis and Hotch ask why Darren wasn’t locked up, and Pretnis realizes that Darren’s father was the Hollow Creek Killer. This makes sense as to why he was never claimed. Now we see Darren in the car, and more flashbacks. Turns out Darren, as the six year old, stabs his father and took off running moments after Tommy escaped. Garcia starts looking into Darren’s mother. Her name was Doris Jarvis, and through her information they are able to locate Darren’s father. 

Darren now with “Tommy” (Ryan) approach the house that he grew up in with his father. And we get another little flashback. His dad is watching TV and drinking beer. Now, in the current day, we see his father watching TV again, in the exact same position. He looks over at Darren and is like “I knew you’d come home”. 

So the BAU and the cops have the house swarmed, but Prentis is very worried about Darren hurting someone while in there. Meanwhile, Hotch just waltzes in, no protective vest on or anything. Hotch confronts Darren and is like “i know everything!”. Darren says he’s gonna get him (his father) back for everything. Darren starts asking his dad – why did you do that to those kids, etc. 

Hotch asks the dad why he didn’t move, and Hotch notices that the reason he didn’t move is that he can see a school yard from the window of his house. And now we see Hotch call this pedophile out. The dad is very non-reactive, and Hotch tells him he needs to put the gun down so that the police don’t arrest him. But then we hear a lot of gunshots from outside, and Darren shot his father. Hotch says he couldn’t stop him. Darren is apprehended, but before he is taken away, Prentis tells Tommy (who miraculously showed up) that he should talk to Darren. 

Tommy tells Darren he is so sorry, and he feels bad for leaving him behind. Darren says that Tommy is actually the one that saved him, bro are we about to kiss right now? There is some eye contact and touching, and then Darren is driven away. Back at the BAU, Morgan approaches Rossi, because Morgan is very concerned about Hotch. Rossi is defending Hotch’s decisions, but Morgan is still hella concerned. 

Cut and we see Hotch and Prentis entering Hotch’s apartment. Apparently Prentis is insisting upon walking him up. They have a conversation about Call and Tommy, but its really about Hotch and Foyet, technically. Layers! Loneliness!

Rating Criteria:

  • Criminal/Serial Killer: 10/20

  • Character development/ character arcs: 15/20

  • Forensics/Context: 10/20

  • Script writing: 5/20

  • Background characters: 7/20

Overall: 47/100

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S5E3 - “Reckoner”

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S5E1 - “Faceless, Nameless”