photo: cbs
Outlaw
Original Air Date: Oct 21, 2015
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
Do not watch this episode if you’re in a good mood and want to stay that way. It starts with the brutal murder of three teenagers- which is reminiscent of another murder of teenagers- ends with their funerals, and doesn’t exactly get much more spirited in between.
Both cases took place in Las Vegas, New Mexico (Read: not Nevada). Two boys and a girl were shot and then burned after the girl was raped and all three were tortured. Six years ago, something very similar happened with four kids. Worse, all the victims were tied up and forced to watch each other die.
A local cop, who we soon learn is the father of one of the earlier victims, is confronted by another of the fathers, demanding to know if the stories about the murders are true. The cop confirms it, and goes out to greet Hotch, Lewis, and Rossi. The former two talk to the new murdered girl’s parents about a phone message they received from her. Rossi talks to the other father, who, understandably, only wants revenge on these perps.
The phone message is horrifying, the details Morgan and Reid learn at the morgue are horrifying, and our two unsubs, Mason and Lester…well, they mostly just make me root for them to both wind up dead. (Spoiler alert: That wish comes true, at least.) Mason has one single potential silver lining- his discovery that he has a child with a woman named Teresa, who he had sex with before going to prison for five years. He already expresses affection- against Teresa’s will- for his son, Cole.
Reid does something “genius-like”, as Morgan might say, and determines that, from the differences in the former case and this one, only one of the unsubs helped commit the first crime. The second is a new partner. That would be Lester, and however bad Mason is, this dude is really a piece of work. He holds up a pharmacy alone and kills an uncle and niece- again making them watch- for the sake of some free drugs. Mason does not find this to be the great achievement he thinks it is.
Thanks to Garcia’s quick narrowing down of the suspect pool, the BAU knows who they’re looking for before even having to deliver the profile. At the station, Rossi notices the cop father has been drinking, and tells him to go home and get his head together. At the local jail, an extremely unamused Hotch and Lewis confront the charming fellow who committed the first set of murders with Mason. He warns that Lester is basically codependent towards his old friend.
The friction between the two partners comes to a head when Lester kills another man at a gas station- a clerk who pulled a gun on Mason after recognizing his photo (never, ever a good idea). Lester wants to kill two witnesses- a man and his young son- but Mason refuses. At that point, I’m honestly surprised and a bit disappointed that neither one of them kills the other before Lester tears away on his motorcycle and Mason rides off to find Cole and Teresa.
Garcia sends the team and the cop, who has taken Rossi’s advice to heart, to Teresa’s address. Mason’s already been there and gone, having shown up while Cole was with a babysitter and then kidnapped mother and child when Teresa returned home. He remains convinced that they might actually be able to be a family, and, while they’re fighting, she does say that she loved him, too. But then she figures out just what he’s guilty of. And then Lester reappears.
When the team arrives, a shootout ensues. Lester, who takes being meth-addled to a whole new level, takes pleasure in the whole thing. Unsurprisingly, he winds up dead. Mason watches Teresa and Cole being taken to safety and realizes he’s backed into a corner. He opts for suicide by cop in true “blaze of glory” fashion. The scene transitions to funerals as “Amazing Grace” plays in the background, and I know this was a slightly shorter recap than usual, but I need to go watch something funny.
Next Week: The Night Watch