S6E16 - “Coda”
We open to classical piano music and a Walmart-brand Noah Schnapp. The child is playing the piano and teasing those keys. Baby- it’s a montage. We watch him eat, drink apple juice, and play with a toy train. It is very commercial branded. This is all in slow-mo, too. Now we see Hotch walk into his son Jack’s room. Reid walks through a hall, Seaver highlighting and researching in books, Rossi watching her. This is all under the music being played by the boy on the piano. Then we see movement in the background, and suddenly we see blood spattering. The boy stops playing the piano and sits there, stunned, with blood all over him.
We now see Prentis exit an elevator and approach her car in a parking garage. She goes to unlock her car, and it looks like someone has unlocked the car prior to her arrival, so she gets spooked. She cases the car and starts it remotely, but nothing seems to be wrong with it, so she drives off.
Cut, and we see our piano-savant walking to school. He still has blood on his face and clothes, so homie didn’t wash up. Other children stare, and eventually, a teacher hurries over to him.
Prentis is in what looks like a bougie part of DC - Georgetown, maybe? And she gets a call from former co-worker super secret CIA team member Tsia. Prentis sits down on one side of a fountain, and as we pan out we see Tsia sitting on the other side of the fountain. It’s a three-way call, apparently, because a man named Clyde is also there. He also worked with Prentis and Tsia on their super secret team. They discuss what to do about Doyle, apparently Tsia and Clyde are looking into his DC connections. Prentis floats the idea of getting the BAU team involved, but Tsia and Clyde think it’s a bad idea. Prentis gets a call and is summoned back to the BAU.
Quick cut to BAU headquarters in Quantico, VA. We’re in the round table room, and Garcia is briefing the team on 10-year-old Sammy Sparks – the kid from the piano. In Layfattee Louisana, he showed up at school covered in blood. When police got to his house, his parents were missing, but there was blood everywhere, indicating that one or both of them may be badly injured or killed. However, local PD has not received any ransom demands. New Orleans PD is hoping that the BAU can interview Sammy, because Sammy is autistic. To be clear- he is nonverbal autistic. Or guest for this episode did a great job of explaining autism, so we def recommend you listen to our coverage. Local PD has had trouble getting any information from him regarding the crime, although the police believe he was present during the incident.
Now on the BAU jet, we get our quote. Reid is talking to Seaver about Doctor Who – I was NOT emotionally ready for this. He talks about how DW started a quarter of a century before Bill and Ted went on their “bodacious adventure”, and he talks about how it is a rip-off. Seaver is like, “I’m really sorry for asking.” Garcia phones in, and we learn that Charlie Sparks’s (Sammy’s father)blood was the one at the crime scene, indicating he was the one injured or killed. The BAU also entertains the idea of a robbery gone wrong, because this area was affected by “the oil spill” (ahem BP??). Hotch thinks it was a planned abduction, although the scene was frenzied and disorganized. Seaver suggests Sammy is the unsub, but that makes no sense, so she quickly drops that. We also learn that the Sparks family owns a music store that is not doing well financially.
We cut to Lusiana and see an area that is very run down and economically poor. At the Spark’s residence, the BAU concludes this was definitely an abduction because nothing of financial value was taken from the Sparks’s home. There are no signs of forced entry, so they believe that this is an unsub who knows the family. The fact that the unsub left Sammy at the crime scene indicates that the unsub knows the family well enough to know about Sammy’s autism.
The BAU visits Sammy at PD headquarters. Reid touches him on the shoulder, which makes Sammy scream and start stimming. Rossi talks about how autistic children don’t handle touch well, and Reid believes that seeing his parents killed may have put him into emotional overload. Sammy is drawing a bunch of “L”s all a piece of paper and starts gesticulating as if he was writing in the air. Reid asks if “L” took Sammy’s family, but Sammy continues to stim. Rossi asks Garcia to look into all known associates of the Sparks family whose names start with Ls.
Meanwhile, Seaver and Prentis go to the music shop owned by the Sparks and realize that the family received payments through unconventional ways – a barter system. The Sparks also had video surveillance of the store and take the tapes for Garcia to look into. Hotch and Morgan look through Sammy’s room at the Sparks residence, noting that Sammy draws a lot. They also see some toys from occupational therapy. They find his train (which Hotch notes is likely Sammy’s favorite toy because it’s in a place of prominence) and decide to bring it to Sammy to see if it will make him feel better. We stan a DADDY! Big Daddy energy!
At the shop, they see that Sammy’s parents have a desk set up for Sammy in the store, and it looks like they went out of their way to accommodate his autism. They put all their money into helping their son (as any good parent would). The BAU also discuss that if Sammy’s parents don’t turn up, and if they don’t find any relatives, he will be handed over to the state and put into special needs foster systems.
At Sammy’s school, the team learns that the school doesn’t have any sort of special needs program, and Sammy just sits with the rest of the class. Reid talks about some generalizations about educating autistic children, and I’m sure this is true; however, it is very monotheistic the way they are talking about it. They talk about how they must have followed a very strict routine/schedule because that is often well-received by children on the spectrum, but it could also make them very easy targets.
BAU is back at headquarters, Garcia is talking about how it is very tricky going through all the people in the vicinity who were having financial issues because of the oil spill (BP, you can’t fool us, we know it’s BP). The Sparks family recently received a loan for their home/shop, so they could have easily been targeted for that, especially since apparently receiving a loan was like “winning the lottery” in their town. As they are talking, they bring up the possibility of the abductor offering medical care to Charlie in return for Allison clearing out their bank accounts and handing over the loan. While they are discussing this possibility, Garcia gets an alert and shares that she had frozen their assets earlier that day, but the freeze hasn’t been processed by the bank, and now someone is withdrawing 10k from a joint savings account.
At the bank, we see Allison return to a car, and there is a red-neck-coded man in there, and he is upset she only got him 10k. She is desperate to get back to Sammy and apologizes for not having gotten all the money, but that was how much the bank was allowing her to withdraw at once. He says it is not enough, and we learn that she also does not know where Charlie is. The dialogue is good and tense! Later, Seaver and Prentis go to the bank. They learn that there was 42k in the bank, but the bank only gave Allison 10k because it was what they had on hand.
Quick cut- we see Charlie is being kept on a boat, and he is bleeding profusely.
Garcia can’t find anyone who has the initials of L matching up with potential unsubs, but she does find that Sammy has an aunt named Elizabeth, but she is not responding to any calls or anything. They think she could maybe go my “Lizzie,” and they tell Garcia to look into her asap.
And now…the profile:
In danger of losing a home, property, or business
A large family
Single income
He had no intention of hurting either of his victims, but it was an unfortunate but necessary means to an ends
Look for anyone who is down and out- fishermen, boat owners, people who work in tourist or beachy areas
Part-time or under-the-table jobs,
The unsub Was pushed to extortion,
He has a strong obligation to his dependents, so much so that he was pushed to steal from and kidnap people he knows
He might be at risk of or have recently lost someone, so there may be a custody case, etc
He also went to a bank in a nearby parish, so he has his own means of transportation
He is conscious of the FBI;’s involvement
He now knows that the banks are frozen, so he will look for other means of getting the money
We now see that Allison is kept in the trunk of his car.
Sammy has been drawing a lot, and the principal from his school comes to visit him at New Orleans PD headquarters. The BAU still has been unable to contact any relatives or Aunt Lizzie, so they’re trying to get someone Sammy recognizes, hoping that will comfort him. However, when the principal tries to talk to him, he gets stressed and starts stimming. He eventually calms down, and we see that he is playing his drawing like a piano. The team wants to bring him back to the house so he can play the piano, but his principal is concerned about “re-traumatizing” Sammy and gives the team a lot of grief about it. Just then, his Aunt Liz Sparks appears, and I think it’s the same actress who plays Finn Hudson’s mom on Glee?
Next, we see Allison Sparks hit the unsub in the face as he opens the trunk of his car to retrieve her. She starts running away from him, but he catches her and punches her in the face (a la Snooky Season 1 Episode 4 of the Jersey Shore.) The unsub does have some remorse about this almost immediately and asks Allison if she is okay. She begs him to release her so she can get Charlie medical attention, but the unsub says he can’t do that. He says he needs to get his boys back, and he says he has two more days to prove he is fit.
Back at New Orleans PD- Aunt Lizzie is torn between taking Sammy back to his house to use the piano and heading the principal’s advice about re-traumatizing him. Ultimately, they decide to bring Sammy back to the house. Don’t worry- this was the right choice!
On the unsubs boat, the unsub brings Allison to see Charlie, and Charlie has bled out and is now deceased.
The BAU somehow finds the fisherman’s hook from the unsub’s car? The one Allison tried to use to attack the unsub in the parking lot? So now they think the unsub is a fisherman. They also focus on the amount of the loan that the Sparks family was able to secure, thinking that the unsub is looking for the full amount of the loan, which was $40k.
Now Sammy, Rossi, Reid, and Lizzie are back at the Spark’s house. Sammy is playing with his train and then sits at the piano. He starts playing scales after Reid begins playing with him. Reid suggests one note meaning “yes” and the other meaning “no”. So Reid starts asking him questions, and Sammy uses the keyboard to answer but quickly launches into the song he was playing at the beginning of the episode. Reid asks if the song means something to him, and Sammy holds Reid’s hand and places it on the piano. Then Sammy teaches Reid how to play the song, and they play the song together.
Garcia says she has not found anything suspicious about Lizzie, but also has 127 fishermen etc in the area who are in financial trouble. She begins to narrow the list down to fishermen with divorce and custody battles. Back at the house, we learn that Lizzie was the one who thought Sammy was autistic, and that was a fight that caused a rift between her and Charlie. They haven’t spoken in years, and Lizzie regrets the way the relationship turned. Lizzie finds a flip book with information in it about Sammy’s family and schedule and realizes that Charlie and Allison have been teaching Sammy about Lizzie all along. The flip book gives Rossi and Reid an idea about how Sammy knows the unsub. Reid realizes that Sammy has been trying to communicate with them through the pictures he has been drawing, and Sammy has already solved the crime! The L wasn’t a letter, but the hands on a clock showing 3 pm. So they check Sammy’s schedule, and at 3 pm, Sammy is always at his parent’s music store.
So the team heads to the store and looks at the security footage from the stores camera. Sammy also starts playing the same song that he played earlier. The BAU sees on the security footage a delivery man enter the store, and that delivery man is the unsub. Garcia looks into the unsub, and we learn he is a former fisherman turned part-time delivery driver who racked up more debt than he and his recently estranged sons could support. His house was recently foreclosed. His name is Bill Thomas, and his boat is docked in the marina.
The BAU zoomie zoom zoom out to Bill’s house but don’t find anything. They then find Bill on his boat. Bill sees them, and Morgan yells at him, telling him to turn himself in. On the inside of the boat, Allison is crying and holding her husband Charlie’s dead body. Unsub Bill is talking about how he had dreams and aspirations in life, and Alison is like, well, Charlie was my dream. Bill hands her his gun, and it is suggested that he wants Allison to shoot him. She refuses, but Bill is like, if I do it myself, my boys won’t get my life insurance policy. She entertains the idea, but she refuses and says she knows the difference between right and wrong. He tries to get her angry by saying Charlie is gone and how she’s going to be alone for the rest of her life, etc. We cut away to the BAU and hear a gunshot, but it’s unclear what went down. The team rushes inside to find Bill deceased.
Allison is reunited with Sammy. Earlier in the episode, we learned that Sammy had never been able to give his mother a hug. But on the dock, once reunited, Sammy pats his mother on the shoulder, and she embraces him. Lizzie is also there, unable to reconcile with Charlier, she is devasted. Hopefully she can be involved in Sammy’s life from now on!
The BAU arrives back in DC thanks to the jet. Garcia brings popcorn to Morgan’s office. Hotch checks on Jack in bed, and Rossi and Seaver play a video game together. Reid goes out and purchases a keyboard. We see Prentis having a nighttime meeting, and she brings two cups of coffee to a park table. Doyle arrives, and he and Prentis have a spooky conversation. He says he wants her “soon”. He threatens her and her team, and she says not to touch them or she will end him. He says that she took the only thing that mattered to him., and he’s going to get her! Ahh!
Rating Criteria:
Criminal/Serial Killer: 18/20
Character development/ character arcs: 13/20
Forensics/Context: 20/20
Script writing: 20/20
Background characters: 20/20
Overall: 91/100