S6E1 - “The Longest Night”

Previously on Criminal Minds: T Curry was in the house. BAU headed to LA to go after a night stalker-esque Serial Killer who was wreaking havoc during rolling blackouts. LA County had instituted these blackouts due to the heat wave, and wherever LA county turned out the power, Tim Curry, aka the unsub, would show up and kill people. BAU met Agent Spicer (who was very sexy) and his partner Kurzbard (aka Kurz). And long and short of it- Agent Spicer’s parents were victims of T Curry way back in the day. But T Curry let baby Spicer live. So now T Curry believes that he is responsible for Spicer’s success as a cop. So T Curry kidnaps Spicer’s sister and daughter, and when Spicer and Morgan show up to confront him, T Curry kills Spicer. But not before Spicer gets Morgan to promise to take care of Spicer’s daughter, Ellie. Ellie is 8 yo. And there was a blackout that took the entire city offline before this happened, so the team can’t get in touch with Morgan. And blah blah blah here we are.

We open and we’re listening to Leonard Cohen again. I’m so sorry everyone. I didn’t want to be here either. I love Leonard Cohen’s songs, but the voice is just… so much. We’re in a field watching a boy standing by a tree. But like… it’s not a real field because it’s like CGI?? Or it’s got some sort of shitty effect that’s very trippy. We then see a woman, I assume he is the child’s mother, standing behind the boy. Because, I guess it would be weird if it wasn’t his mother? And then the boy smiles and he has rotten teeth, so we’re like, okay this is T Curry as a child. Because… that is the case.

We learn the Los Angeles county power grid has overloaded and gone completely down. There’s no cell service, no A/C, just all around a bad time. We’re still in Santa Monica, where T Curry has just mcfreaking murdered Spicer and taken off with his daughter Ellie. 

It’s worth noting… the child actress who plays Ellie… cannot keep a straight face when she’s working with T Curry. She just… keeps smiling and breaking character. I bet he was a lot of fun to work with.

We see Ellie running through the streets, being pursued by T Curry in a van. She bangs on the door of the first house she sees, and a man and woman answer. Ellie is hysterical, begging to come in the house, and she’s wearing her pajamas and shit. And although the woman is like, this is a frightened child, let’s let her in, the man is like CALL THE POLICE. DO NOT LET HER IN THE HOUSE. I DON’T TRUST THIS TINY CHILD. After he delivers this instruction, T Curry comes out of nowhere and shoots the man. Because, remember, he is essentially Spider-Man. 

The BAU and Detective Kurzbard quickly ascertain that T Curry took Spicer’s sister Kristen and his daughter Ellie to the house in Santa Monica that used to belong to Spicer’s parents. Effectively, the Spicer Family Murder House. If this was real life, Netflix would have pissed themselves to get the documentary rights for this. 

Cut to, The Spicer Family Murder House. Morgan and Kristen are still tied up next to Spicer’s dead body. Kristen is having a panic attack, understandably, and Morgan is like, hang on, now. I know we’re both tied up, and your brother’s dead body is over there- but how about a cognitive interview?? Let’s chat!

He asks her what she remembers about T Curry and she says “I don’t want to remember”. Kristen was kidnapped, beaten, sexually assaulted, and had her beloved brother murdered in front of her, and because Morgan can’t read a fucking room, she has to answer his stupid questions. She tells Morgan that T Curry has been traveling in an RV, which is… news to me. Because that shit looked like a van. But okay. Specifically she says “An old, filthy RV”. 

Cut to T Curry and Ellie in the old, filthy RV. Ellie realizes that T Curry let her get away on purpose, knowing that she would call for help, and that he could sweep in and blitz attack any poor soul who opened the door to help her. Ellie feels responsible, and T Curry is like, “we’re gonna make a great team, Poppet”. 

Hotch, Prentis and Kurz roll up to The Spicer Family Murder House. Kurz is devastated to learn that Spicer was murdered. One of the detectives who gets to the crime scene first, tells Hotch and Kurz that there’s been another murder. The couple that Ellie asked for help where the husband was like I DO NOT TRUST THIS LITTLE GIRL IN THE PINK PAJAMAS.  

Morgan is refusing medical attention, insisting that he won’t go to a hospital until they locate Ellie. And Hotch is like… okay. Because, remember when Prentis literally was in a car accident, and still went to work? Capitalist Hell Hole. In the ambulance, Prentis continues to question Spicer’s sister Kristen. Kristen takes off her oxygen mask to tell Prentis that T Curry is always listening to the radio, listening for updates on his case. Garcia calls Morgan and says “Baby boy, you all good?” Like, no Bitch, he was just held hostage!

 Morgan asks Garcia to run a partial RV plate for him and he’s a bit tense with her. He turns to Hotch and complains about Garcia, saying: “You know she really needs to be more professional sometimes.” And Hotch is like “She gets the job done every time.” Morgan then tells Hotch that he specifically told Spicer that he wanted to wait for backup. Morgan is having a hard time.

 [Insert T Curry and Ellie Scene here] The big takeaways are 1: T Curry is God, T Curry cuts Ellie’s hair and changes her clothes, and T Curry kills someone who is changing their flat tire.

Back at LAPD headquarters, Garcia calls to tell the tea that there are zero RVs with the partial license plate Kristen gave the team. Morgan yells at Garcia and hangs up on her. The BAU try to figure out how to get to T Curry. They circle back to the fact that T Curry loves listening to updates on his case over the radio, but the trouble is that they don’t know what radio station he specifically listens to. JJ suggests using the emergency alert system.

We then get another T Curry child in the field/ Leonard Cohen montage.  I can’t stand this fucking song. I can’t handle this right now. T Curry pulls up to a house and uses a broken bicycle rouse to get the home owner to open his door, which of course he does. The man is like, what did you do to my son’s bicycle? And T Curry is like “Ran over it. Twice.” And then he shoots the man. T Curry gets Ellie out of the car and tells her to go get the son whose bicycle he just ran over twice. Meanwhile, T. Curry ties up the boy’s mother.

T Curry wants Ellie to put the little boy in the closet so that he can watch what T Curry is doing to his mother? But then T Curry sees a family photo, and realizes that the household actually has two sons. And Ellie is like, yeah, I told the younger brother to go tell the neighbors to go call the police. “Can’t kill them all, can you?” And T Curry is like “I can try.”

Meanwhile, JJ is still trying to get hold of someone who can grant the FBI access to the emergency alert system. She keeps being put on hold and she is getting pissed. Meanwhile Kurz gets a call that the little boy who just escaped from T Curry has reported his parent’s attack to the police. The BAU head over to the house, and T. Curry and Ellie drive away in the car owned by the family they just killed. I guess the two sons are alive. But the parents are dead? T Curry and Ellie take off just in time, before the BAU show up. T Curry literally reverses through a garage door.

But this is kind of good, because now the BAU has T Curry’s ratty old RV. Morgan and Reid go over the RV, and find T Curry’s crack paraphernalia. And also like, T Curry cut Ellie’s hair, but just left the cut hair on the floor? I guess cleanliness is not high on his list of priorities but EW EW EW! Morgan realizes that Ellie was T Curry’s target all along, not Spicer. They think T Curry thinks he’s like… Ellie’s grandparent?? GTFO. 

Cut back to LAPD, JJ is getting PO’ed with the situation. She’s been transferred so many times, and she’s had enough. She goes: “I’m not gonna explain this entire thing again to another mid level bureaucrat who can’t give me a sufficient answer. Put someone on the damn phone who can authorize what I need.” We cut to the next day, and JJ speaks to Madame Secretary, who gives her authorization to use the local emergency alert system. Hotch is like… okay JJ, you do this. And JJ is like… me? I’m not a hostage negotiator. And Hotch goes “I’m sorry, you are today.”

It’s the next day. T Curry and Ellie are bickering in the car like an old married couple. T Curry is like “Why did you do this?” And Ellie’s like “we’re not a team!” and T Curry, sounding hurt, is like “I was nice to you.” Meanwhile… JJ is about to use the Emergency Broadcast System!!!

There’s more Leonard Cohen… this time Sisters of Mercy. And again we’re seeing the CGI wheat field and the tree and baby boy T Curry. He’s dancing with his mother, and she’s wearing a robe. And there’s a knock at the door, and T Curry and his mother are suddenly in an apartment room. And dancing time is over, his mother makes T Curry sit in the closet and is like “get inside”. But she like… leaves the closet door all the way open. She then takes off her robe, and she’s wearing lingerie, and we get the sense that she is some sort of sex worker.

And T Curry is hallucinating this, and he actually says out loud to Ellie “get inside and don’t come out until I call for you.” And Ellie is like.. Bro, wtf? Garcia calls in with info!! She found a 40-year-old murder that was “quite the scandal” and Kurz is like “for the 60s, that’s saying something” and Garcia is like “I don’t know who just talked”. Garcia- It's Kurzbard. Detective Kurzbard.

 We learn about Nora Flynn, who was a sex worker who I guess really liked bikers. Garcia calls them her “stock and trade” which I hate. She was living in a desert community outside of LA, and one day, her and a client, were murdered by her 13 year old son, Billy. We get to see old newspaper clippings, and to CM’s credit they did use a photo of young T Curry in the article, which is a level of detail we don’t normally see in CM, so I appreciate that. Because Billy was a juvenile, he was convicted and released at age 18. 

Morgan also apologizes to Garcia for yelling at her. And she’s like- it’s fine. You’re stressed. Hotch coaches JJ on the emergency broadcast system. We keep cutting back here and I’m like… let’s just drop the new track already JJ. Stop Frank Oceaning us!! JJ starts talking to T Curry on the radio and T Curry is so confused and he’s like “Ellie, did you say something to me?” And she’s like “who’s Billy Flynn”. JJ’s like “I’m not a hostage negotiator, actually I’ve never done anything like this at all” and I’m like GIRL SHUT UP. She’s like “you can tell I’m not a hostage negotiator” actually girl I didn’t until you kept BRINGING IT UP! JJ is basically like “Billy Baby, you have Mommy Issues. But I could be your new mommy!”

Anyways I think it’s bad writing. We get montages of everyone listening to JJ and being like “wow, for someone who is not a hostage negotiator, she’s pretty good at this”. It goes on FOREVER. But it works! Ellie has been released, but Spicer’s sister Kristen has died from blunt force trauma.

There’s a standoff, and T Curry is like “Hey can you guys send Morgan in?” So Morgan goes in. There is some very bad modern art on the walls of the house T Curry has locked himself in. He’s also tied up a husband and wife who I guess bought the bad art. Morgan is like “it’s over Flynn” and T Curry is like “My mother used to dance with me.” The Mommy Issues are abundant and ultimately T Curry raises his gun at Morgan, so Morgan has to kill him.

And…again… there’s more Leonard Cohen. There’s “Who By Fire”. Morgan has a moment with Ellie, and again, this actress is SMILING. But anyways this is over and we can get on with it!!!

Rating Criteria:

• Criminal/Serial Killer: 20/20

• Character development/ character arcs: 15/20

• Forensics/Context: 5/20

• Script writing: 5/20

• Background characters: 7/20

Overall: 52/100