photo: cbs
Future Perfect
Original Air Date: Dec 9, 2015
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
Remember how I said not to expect a cheery holiday installment of Criminal Minds? Yes, well, this is the last episode of the year, and it proves me right several times over. Couldn’t we get just a bit of caroling and gift exchanging? Or at least considerably less death? I guess not.
Two people out “frogging” stumble upon a body in the woods, which, in my mind, is just the thing you have coming to you when participating in a sport that involves spearing defenseless frogs. Soon after, Rossi and a still office-bound Garcia are interrupted from their poker game for the case.
Two bodies have been found so far, and both have been exsanguinated. There’s a lot of damage to the corpses, which most likely can be caused by animals, but which the news media, in its eternal wisdom, has attributed to devil worship. Meanwhile, a girl meets a random guy in a cemetery at night. This being the totally normal place where people meet to play games, we’re all shocked when he pulls out a syringe and stabs in the neck the moment she has second thoughts.
JJ briefly gets to play her old media liaison role again, trying to talk the media down from their ratings-raising angle. Lewis meets with the ME as he makes a frankly alarming discovery- not only were the two victims drained of their blood, they then had their blood switched into each other’s bodies. Before you can cringe too much at that, you also get to cringe at the kidnapped girl being wheeled down a hallway on a gurney and then set to another captive, an older man who is similarly restrained.
We then switch gears for a moment to follow an elderly couple meeting with their doctor, hoping for a cure to whatever condition is killing her. It’s not good news- the woman only has six months to live. As her husband tries to come to grips with this, an orderly we soon realize is our unsub (thanks to conveniently overdramatic music) comes to help them out of the building. Back with our team, Garcia tries to track down folks involved in medical experimentation.
The more we learn about our two current victims, the stranger things get. The man also had animal DNA- specifically jellyfish DNA- and Alzheimer’s medication in his body, both injected after the transfusion. Lord knows what the unsub plans to do to the guy he’s currently holding on to, but before he can, they guy goes and dies of a heart attack. He doesn’t even listen to the unsub telling him not to die. How inconsiderate. Soon, his body turns up in the park.
The profile says our unsub is a Jekyll/Hyde type, smart but also crazy (no kidding). We know that, but apparently the husband and wife are too desperate to see it. The unsub shows up at their door, offering a new treatment, and even though his own descriptions of what he has planned are shady at best, the husband is too hopeful for a miracle not to agree. We learn that the unsub is named Robert, but that’s not very much for Garcia to go on in tracking the dude down.
Surprisingly, the wife’s condition improves. We all know that won’t last, including Robert, so he goes back to the hospital to steal more medication. When the doctor who spoke to the couple confronts him, he kills her and takes her away in a body bag. It’s only after seeing the news of her disappearance that the husband starts to realize just how bad an idea this really was. Rossi channels Reid (by calling him on the phone) and learns that Robert’s likely goal is helping humans match the lifespan of jellyfish.
As Robert sits with the kidnapped girl, the wife’s condition abruptly takes a turn for the worst. The husband, as opposed to calling, you know, 911, instead calls him, prompting him to demand another transfusion- at his “office” in an abandoned medical facility. By the time the husband finally starts trying to back out of this plan, Robert won’t let him leave. As he prepares to cut into the girl, Garcia manages to track down the address of where he’s hiding out.
They find him just in time, saving the young victim. But it’s too late for the wife, who was left alone during the fray and dies as he husband asks what he did. And while I want to judge him for doing it, in the end, it’s just sad. He took what he thought was the only option because he was so desperate. Robert took advantage of people who were dying, and, from his frothing rant, it seems he was only in it for the fame. There is one small silver lining to this episode: a possible breakthrough in finding the men who are after Garcia. But the moment we hear about it, we cut to black. Cue a long five week wait.