The episode opens with a 911 dispatcher on the phone. We are in Tallahassee FL, so we know its about to be wild. There are tons of emergency phone calls, and we see them click-clacking away at desks while speaking to those calling in.

Finally we focus on one, and the dispatcher gets a call from a guy who says “there’s a dead body in the warehouse…There’s a dead body in the warehouse in Crawfordville”. The dispatcher asks for more specifics, and he says “West of the Crawfordville highway, south of woodland. Dirt road.” He says that he does not have an address. The dispatcher tells him he needs to stay on the line, and asks if he is sure the victim is dead, to which he says “he will be” lol. We then hear a gunshot and see the officers rolling up to the location he had described.

The officers arrive. There doesn’t seem to be anything wild going on outside, to they approach the warehouse. They yell about being the police and aggressively enter the building, but inside it is dark and all they can see is someone sitting in a chair. Come on guys, the person in the chair is obviously dead. The cops realize he is dead, and they have a hard time handling the fact that it is a dead body. One of the officers shares that it looks to be a suicide. They finally turn on the lights and see that the victim is absolutely covered in tattoos. Additionally, on the wall there is like a fucking shrine dedicated to dead/missing women.

Back at the BAU the team is getting ready to leave for the weekend – Morgan going to the beach, Prentis going to a “sin to win” weekend, and Reid, my baby, who says he had no plans, when JJ indicates they now have another case to work on.

JJ visits Hotch in his office and shares that the files were just faxed to her by Tallahassee officials who had been working a case on a missing young woman – Rebecca Daniels who went missing while jogging near the FSU campus three weeks ago. She then shows him the photos of the tattooed dead dude – and we get the specific reasoning they were called now. All the tattoos on his body are portraits of the previously missing women, completed with the years of their deaths/time of discovery. Spooky! And all the tattoos correlate to the faces on the wall next to the body, the wall complete with information on the women going back 10 years.

Hotch immediately guesses that it was the deceased who called in about the body, and talks about how he is likely putting on a show. He tells JJ to tell Tallahassee not to touch the body because he likely left everything to be seen in a very specific way – intentionally staged. It is also possible that now, the only person who knew/knows where Rebecca is, may be dead.

In Tallahassee, the team rolls up to the warehouse. They are upset about the heat of FL and i cannot blame them. They meet John Barton (aka Hank from Breaking Bad) of the Tallahassee PD who seems like, the most chipper PO we’ve encountered on the show, like ever. She shares with them that he has confirmed that all of the women on the wall are victims from the southeast area; Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama.

They go in the warehouse and it seems to smell terrible. They comment on the drama of how it is all staged, and learn that they are already testing for fingerprints and DNA. apparently his prints have cleared locally, however they are still waiting to hear back nationally. We also learn that the lady to rented out this warehouse took cash and it was from a seemingly normal guy named bob. Rossi comments on him being a late bloomer, considering that this guy is older however the records only go back 10 years.

They notice that the blood from the gunshot is up on the lamp, which is “overkill”.

JJ begins investigating the wall; she notices that the oldest clipping is from 10 years ago, and they are in order; oldest to newest. It was one victim a year for 10 years, and each girls remains were found in a well-traveled wooded area. Each of them was strangled, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and then a week later another body has been found. The new abductions always happened after the body was found, so according to Hotch he has a year long cycle where he “uses them up and gets a newer model”.

Meanwhile, Rossi and Reid investigate the body. Reid notices the rose tattoo on his arm, and comments that the rose tattoo used to be put on the bodies of men who were sentenced to death; because if they escaped it was used to identify them. However, now rose tattoos generally just symbolize pure love. Reid goes off about Ray Bradbury’s “Illustrated Man” and then one of the state troopers shows them a blank spot on the dudes back; no face, no date.

Morgan calls Reid over and shows him that they found a bunch of journals written by the unsub. Morgan and Prentis ask Reid to read through the journals, since he’s the fastest lol.

JJ and Hotch discuss how it makes sense that none of these missing girls cases ever were connected, given that they were all from different states and jurisdictions; and this unsub probably knew that system and was using it to his advantage. But why did he kill himself now?

The team gathers together to talk – maybe this is sort of a profile? Even though he is dead.

He wanted the police there. He wanted them to see all of it.
He was definitely a sadist; his journals were graphic and meticulous.
Covering himself with his victims’ likeness is methodical and possessive; he’ll always own them.
The suicide shows commitment.
He is organized and compulsive
The crimes are on an annual cycle.
All the computer print outs on the boards were printed two weeks ago, which is when he got access to the building.
He got away with it for 10 years, but now decides to literally end it all

Reid has a revelation; this unsub literally gave them everything and for no apparent reason. He mentions if an unsub came and turned themselves in before killing himself what would they all say? They’d suspect he was hiding something or someone. Reid says he also caught a mistake in the third journal; “I thought it would take longer, but today was the lucky day. She almost walked right by, almost missed her completely, but at the last moment we found our latest guest”. WE he has a partner! He is hiding the partner that is till out there!

We now see a man enter the property of a house. A woman is in the backyard doing yard work. He comes up behind her, scares her, and he asks her to sign for a package. He leaves and she opens the package. Inside is a letter. It is a suicide note seemingly from the unsub. She dramatically cries and hugs her pregnant belly. Then she gets up and walks into a bedroom of the house where we see Rebecca Daniels chained to a mattress on the floor.

Rebecca begs to leave, and the wife says “this is your fault!” and locks her away. There are tons of drawings of the girls on the walls of the room.

JJ tries to control the press, and Prentis floats a profile of the partner. She talks about how the unsub was a dominant personality, but they cannot think of any case where the dom would commit suicide to protect the sub. So the partner must be equal in some way, or at least not a competitor in any way. Prentis suggests it may be someone he cared about, but Hotch kind of dismisses this idea, which i find deeply ironic.

Rossi calls Garcia and she shares that she has learned that all skin artists/illustrators in FL must go through proper channels for licenses, etc, however, she also knows that not everyone actually does that.

Hotch asks Barton if he personally knows Rebecca Daniels, because he has called her Becky a couple times and he seems close to the case. He insists he does not, however, it is close to home for him for some reason. Its weird. Rossi and Prentis leave to go see if any tattoo parlors recognized the work.

The tattoo artist they visit does not recognize the artists work, however, he does notice that the rose tattoo was covering up a previous tattoo, and it looks as if it wasn’t done professionally – more likely it was done in jail.

Rebecca and the wife have a dramatic scene where Rebecca begs to leave, and the wife emotionally processes that her man is gone, and talks about how she loved him and would do anything for him. She calls him her masterpiece – and then Rebecca notices that the wife is bleeding.

Reid realizes that he references a blank space in his journals, but he has two blank spaces, on his chest and back. SO what is this about?!

Garcia calls Prentis and reveals she has more info; she suggests that the covered up tattoo could have come from one of four major institutions; she does lots of tracking and timelines and finds the names of 4 convicted rapists it could have belonged to, however, none of them trace back to Tallahassee. However – there is a Robert on the list, and someone named “bob” rented the warehouse.

They share the name, Robert Burke, and Burton is like, dag nabit! I knew that name! He was a known sex offender from Virginia, and he got a traffic ticket near FSU the night Rebecca disappeared. He was one of the suspects, and Burton had gone to his apartment to interview him, but he could never catch up with him. However, he had known he was on the list, so that is why he ended it all.

Back with the wife, the wife is having issues. Rebecca is begging for her to unchain her so she can help. We also see there is a flower tattoo on the wife’s arm. She says if she helps her, she will le her go.

The swarm the apartment, but of course it is empty and he is not there. Reid is examining the body and notices something strange on the back. There is a tattoo with invisible ink. The blank spot on the back is a fucking embryo in a womb.

Rebecca and the wife are really just out here giving birth. The baby seems to be okay. The wife is like “it cant be a boy”, and she just groans and is upset. She says she doesn’t want a boy, because he will grow up to hurt her. And then she??? Dies???

The BAU ask Garcia to look for visitor logs while Burke was in jail, because they believe that could possibly be when and how they met. They ask Garcia to look for women who visited other inmates when Burke was in prison, but who stopped visiting after his release. They find the wife, Juliet Monroe. Her father was in prison with Burke for abusing her, and she visited him every month previous to Burke arriving. After Burke arrived, she started coming twice a month, then every week. And she stopped abruptly after Burke’s release. They find her address, and head over. They find Rebecca and the baby, and Juliet’s dead body.

Hotch compliments Burton, a nd honestly, yeah, good for burton. And its a happy ending?

Rating Criteria:

Criminal/Serial Killer: 17/20

Character development/ character arcs: 15/20
Forensics/Context: 17/20
Script writing: 15/20
Background characters: 20/20

Overall: 84/100

S5E20 - “A Thousand Words”

S5E21 - “Exit Wounds”

S5E19 - “Rite of Passage”