S6E22 - “Out of the Light”
The episode opens with a montage-y look at Morgan performing CPR. The screen blacks out, and we get a title of “3 days earlier” and see a young woman running through the woods – she is running from someone/something. She is super dirty and has scratches on her body. We see her scale a hill, and as she runs, she falls over a cliff and falls to a road below her.
We cut, and we see Hotch’s son Jack playing soccer, and then cut to Hotch returning to the office. He meets Rossi, and Rossi asks how his weekend was. Hotch explains that Jack had two soccer games, and Rossi is like, “Did they win?” to which Hotch is like, “We don’t keep score in Jack’s age group,” and Rossi is like, “That bad?” and he’s like yeah. Hotch says he has been asked to help Coach the soccer team, and Rossi is all, “Why did they ask you?” Hotch explains that he is the one who is the most focused/participates, whereas everyone else is on their phones.
Garcia briefs the team on the unidentified woman who plunged off the roadside cliff in North Carolina. This occurred in a town called Lake Worth, roughly 200 miles from Raleigh. Most of the people who live there are retired/older, and the town thrives off of tourism. She survived her fall, and the local sheriff found her. The team has been called in because a couple of years ago, the police found a torso of a Jane Doe who had sustained similar injuries, and now they wonder if it was the same person. They both have/had stab wounds all over their bodies from different instruments, she’s been raped repeatedly and tortured, and given the bruising/scarring, she hadn’t been kept very long. However, there hasn’t been any alert for missing girls, and she remains unconscious, so they haven’t been able to identify her yet.
Sadists usually restrain their victims on their own turf, so whoever this is, he is probably from Lake Worth, and she probably only escaped because she saw an opportunity and took it; however, this guy is not going to want to keep his torture chamber empty for long, so they better start looking!
Next, we get some shots of someone in the woods doing what seemingly looks to be yard work – he is spraying something on the ground, and the man gets a text that says, “How’s it going” to which he replies, “Oh. my. God. so much fun” yikes. We see him digging in the dirt, pulling out a skull, and placing it in a bag. Hamlet moment!
On the BAU jet, Hotch reports that the doctors say the girl is in her late teens – just like the jane doe from before. Reid shares that no one from town is missing, so he probably picks up his victims from outside town. The jane doe from 2008 and this unidentified girl were also found in different areas of Lake Worth, so he likely keeps them somewhere in between. Similarly, given the bruising on this current victim and how dehydrated she is, the unsub is likely intentionally trying to keep his victims weak, and he must have underestimated her when she took her chance to run. We also learn that 80% of sexual sadists have dozens or so of victims in their past, develop god complexes, and usually have a ruse of sorts to trap victims and lead normal lives.
Garcia is looking for missing persons in the neighboring states. At the hospital, Hotch learns that she has been paralyzed from the waist down. Reid profiles her body, and we learn she was not a high-risk victim. She was likely from a middle-class family, and he believes she was an athlete given splints in her leg – she could run for miles. He wasn’t sure what was used to cut her, but it was not a knife.
Seaver and Morgan meet with the Sheriff. Meanwhile, the girl in the hospital has opened her eyes, so Reid tries to speak with her – going all “Hi, my name is Spencer Reid, I’m with the FBI, can you tell me your name” and it's very over the top I died. She does not answer, but she does whisper, “he hurt,” and then she says, “He has mercy” However, she has a brain bleed, and the doctors have to rush in to try to help her. Uh oh!
Rossi and Hotch unpack her saying “he has mercy” and what that could be. Morgan and Seaver, while in the woods, smell ammonia – it's the same little gardening experience we saw the texting omg besties saying. Morgan calls Hotch and tells him about the gardening situation. Hotch and backup investigate the gardening and come to find out that they are graves, and the unsub probably brought the girl down here to be buried, but she escaped before he could. Forensics also shares that some of the graves there could have been ten years old. The team continues to find even more remains in the graves, so Garcia needs to look into missing person cases for the last ten years.
Eight teenage girls in the Carolinas have gone missing in the last ten years. The one in the hospital is blonde, and ⅜ were also blonde. They haven’t had any luck with the missing persons list. Garcia calls in and says she just got a call from a girl, and Shreveport police reported a car that was abandoned and listed to a Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who let their daughter borrow the car so she and her best friend could drive to Tampa for spring break. However, they never made it there. The girls' names are Angela Proctor and Marcy Owens. Both are 19, and one is blonde. Hotch points out that if the girl in the hospital is Angela, she wasn’t saying, “he has mercy.” She was saying, “he has Marcy.” Spooky ahh.
We hear a girl saying, “Dad come I come out. I have to use the bathroom,” as a man draws on a picture of Marcy. We see her in chains being let into a different room. It is very blurry and spooky and scary. She asks for Angela, and he says you’re all alone now.
The unsub has dyed Angela’s hair blonde, which is part of making her play out a fantasy. Hotch says that they have to alert the community, and the sheriff is like- well, that’s going to kill tourism. We learn that the three graves contained young women with blonde hair in their late teens. So he either loved a young blonde or was hurt by a young blonde, and based on the wounds Angela received, it was probably hurt – especially since sadists often have rage issues. Reid also points out that 4 hours is kind of a long time to go, so he must be comfortable there.
Garcia looks up locals with sexual offense records. There are a couple that don’t fit well. We learn about Marcus Talbot, who was found peaking in holes in the walls of the women’s bathroom at the art institute 15 years ago. And ew! Now he is an art teacher at the high school in lake worth. Rossi and Hotch go to school, while Reid and Morgan go to Talbot’s house.
Talbot is showing his class photos of young women. At the Talbot residence, Morgan finds a sweatshirt that has blood on it, and it is an NCC sweatshirt. Busted! Talbot is called out of his classroom and arrested. He is utterly flabbergasted to be arrested and claims they have made a mistake. Talbot is apprehended and brought to the station. There are already people gathered outside around the station – the drama of a small-town scandal!
Back at Talbot’s office, Reid does not believe he kept any of the girls there. No tv or computer. At the station with Talbot, the sheriff is getting aggro with him. Talbot claims he doesn't know anything about the girls, and he is getting really anxious. Hotch walks in on the sheriff with his finger in talbots face. Hotch brings the sheriff outside and explains that they must carefully speak with Talbot. The Sherrif is miffed and asks Hotch if he’s allowed to continue questioning Talbot. Hotch is like, no. And the sheriff is pissed.
Hotch then speaks to Marcy’s parents, and Rossi has a turn with Talbot. Talbot continues claiming he does not know the girls, and Rossi says, “This is Angela Proctor. SHES DEAD,” which really took me out.
Morgan and Reid find Talbot’s dark room and do not give a fuck about leaving the door with the light open. They find photos of girls' bodies, and it is super suspicious. Some of the photos could totally be passed off as kosher, but the others are suspicious as fuck. Morgan and Reid call Rossi, and he speaks to them while still chatting with Talbot. A lot of them are around 16yo, and here are 54 photos in total. Talbot claims that he doesn't even take the photos – his students do. He keeps claiming he is a teacher, not someone who would hurt anyone.
Now we get a flashback of Angela and Marcy on their road trip. They pull over because Angela has to pee, and Marcy gets out as well. Another driver stops further down the road and calls out and asks if they have car trouble, and she brushes him off. And then a voice is like, “MARCY OWENS,” and she screams. We see that she’s now locked in a barn-looking building.
We learn that Marcy’s parents received some texts from Marcy, but now she’s gone quiet. Hotch looks at the texts and notices that Marcy used text abbreviations earlier during the trip but stopped doing so. Fair, but also, I'm not always consistent. Hotch believes that the unsub took the phone and pretended to be her. They believe he is a Lake Worth resident with a history of Raleigh. But they believe he met Marcy before since Angela had never been there
Hotch asks Marcy’s family if Marcy had ever gone camping in the area while they were on vacation. And she had a couple of times – and she took a photography class with Marcus Talbot, and she loved it. And yep, he held the class at his house, so she had likely been there before. Rossi calls Talbot out on lying about not knowing Marcy, and he's like, “Students like me!” he continues to fervently deny any involvement in what is happening. At his house, a dog finds another grave on his property – so now they think someone else is framing Talbot.
Back with Marcy, she is locked in a bedroom basement situation. We see another man – definitely not Talbot – arrive home. He talks to her about how it was “busy at the restaurant,” and there is a photograph of a blonde lady he calls “Rose” on the wall above the bed.
The sheriff is frustrated because they could easily arrest Talbot now, but the bau is like, yeah, but that is not who the unsub is. However, the profile of the actual unsub should be very similar. Now Talbot is confused about why the team is like, hmmm, tell us information please, instead of accusing him of kidnapping. Especially since he will know who the unsub is – since it is definitely someone who has access to his house.
Seaver is with Marcy’s family, and Seaver notices that Marcy wears a lot of NCC apparel, which her mom freaks out about since it is an advertisement for where she goes to school. She also asks for information about their daily routines. Talbot is eating Chinese food and giving names of people who develop their films in his darkroom since he is the only person in town who is able to do it. “Everyone else has gone digital!”
Reid shares that there were glass fragments in Angela’s wounds and heavy metals in her blood – especially lead. Perhaps the unsub works with stained glass? And the Owens had stained glass windchimes in their condo. We learn that fumes from stained glass can get into your system during the soldering process from Rossi (my ex-wife was crafty). Garcia looks into a short list she has generated of people who have worked with Talbot before. There is a man named Robert Bremmer who has met with Talbot and works with stained glass and has been a member for 16 years at the Owens church, and he owns The Rose Cafe. He also travels all over the state doing craft fairs. And he moved to Lake Worth in 91 after his daughter and wife were killed in a car accident. And yikes, they look just like Marcy!
They hurry over to the restaurant and go looking for him. A waitress says he's there, but as they look for him, it seems like he is on the lam! Bremmer runs into the barn where he is keeping “Rosie” (aka Mary) and says it is “time,” and he has a plan for them to be together forever. He has her leave the hiding place.
Garcia digs into Bremmer’s past, and we learn that he married a lady who had a 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship named Rose. The wife had many mental health problems and was in and out of the hospital as a result, and he was sexually abusing the daughter while she was gone. When she found out abuse, she took Rose and left. But Bremmer kept tracking them down. Ultimately, she drove her car into the lake, killing herself and her daughter.
At Bremmer’s home, they spot some windchimes that look just like the ones at the Owens’s. They see the barn on the property and find where Marcy had been kept, but as we now know, she and Bremmer have already left. They literally see a stained glass of drowning blonde gals. And Hotch realizes that they will also be driving into the lake.
And now it is time for a car chase!
The police are doing checks at the bridge, so this could be a chance for them to get him. When Bremmer sees the police/bau roll up, he guns it and starts driving away. Morgan is pursuing him on foot, and he literally drives into the lake. Morgan jumps in after him, and now it's raining as well???? Is swimming an FBI requirement? Morgan is able to unbuckle Marcy and get her out of the water, and Bremmer literally reawakens trying to stop Morgan, and Hotch SHOOTS HIM UNDER WATER. And they all get back up to the surface. Marcy is unconscious, and Morgan performs CPR – it's the episode's opening! It's all slowmo. She eventually wakes up and chokes up some water.
Back at the station, we see the team getting ready to leave; it seems like a job well done. But then we see Talbot developing photos of Marcy in captivity! Oh shit! And he has paperwork from Bremmer!
On the BAU jet, Rossi gives Hotch some soccer formation/advice information, and Hotch asks Rossi if he would be his assistant. The episode ends with footage of Rossi and Hotch coaching – it is giving Mom and Dad. It's so cute.
Rating Criteria:
Criminal/Serial Killer: 12/20
Character development/ character arcs: 12/20
Forensics/Context: 14/20
Script writing: 15/20
Background characters: 17/20
Overall: 70/100