photo: cbs
A Badge and A Gun
Original Air Date: Feb 24, 2016
Caitlin- Senior Staff Writer
caitlin@thetwocentscorp.com
You may know that I’ve been slightly put off by how little our main characters have gotten to do outside of their jobs the past few episodes. You may also know that I’ve been waiting for that to lead up something more dramatic. And tonight…well, just don’t change channels too early.
We start out not with a case, but with Morgan, worrying about a text he was sent by Savannah, saying she wants to talk. And immediately after that, we DO have a case- one involving two woman left suffocated and wrapped in curtains and bedsheets while home alone.
The team suspects a ruse that would allow this unsub to get invited into the homes of single women. Sure enough, the next time we see him, he’s claiming to be an FBI agent. He gets into another woman’s apartment, asks her a few questions, and tugs on his collar a few times (we’ll learn the significance of that later). When she goes to get him some water, he sneaks up on her and kills her, too. Three low-risk victims in, we officially have a spree killer.
Hotch and JJ go to the local FBI headquarters to consider possible suspects while Morgan and Rossi head to the latest victim’s home and Reid talks to the medical examiner. The most disturbing thing we learn is that the victims were fully wrapped in various sheets while still alive, left to slowly suffocate. The most alarming is that the killer, posing as an agent, could be in their midst right now. A few suspects are brought up, but all are eliminated when another woman is killed.
With Garcia’s poor computer scanning through every man in the Bureau, we learn of a difference between this new victim and the others- she had a husband. A neighbor saw the unsub earlier and noted that he had a spiderweb tattoo on his neck. If that doesn’t sound like an FBI agent to you, you’re right. He was only posing as one, meaning Garcia did all that work for nothing. Our real guy most likely has expensive criminal knowledge, and, though intelligent, is near a breakdown.
By random happenstance, Morgan and Rossi learn of other break-in and homicide that occurred a block away from one of our victim’s homes. As it turns out, all the victims had crimes happen very near them just hours before they were killed. When the unsub heard of these on a police scanner, he had a reason to be let in. So the squad comes up with a plan that can’t possibly backfire- send out a fake report to lure him to another neighborhood.
Thankfully, nobody is killed in this attempt. An officer is shot, but he was wearing a vest. He reports that his attacker tried to play the role of agent in front of him as well, and that the guy had a special hat only given to FBI agents from a specific year. Garcia tracks down the real agent, but he’s been shot dead, and several of his things are missing. She also manages to give us a name- Andrew Meeks, a man who, in high school, was lured to the gym by some girls and almost suffocated by a classmate.
We catch up with Meeks again, trying to make a break for it. It isn’t going well- the breakdown has clearly started. When forced into a police checkpoint, he flees his car and takes a woman hostage. As the team heads over, Garcia informs them that Meeks is yet another unsub with an absolute asshole for a father. JJ and Reid get there first, and try to relate to him about his past. Eventually, he lets the woman go, but raises his gun on law enforcement, forcing Reid to shoot him dead.
As the team heads home, Morgan continues to chat with Savannah by text. It seems things might not be as dire as he suspects- after all, what kind of woman would ask you to get ice cream if she was planning on breaking up with you? Still, he’s worried, and not paying as much attention as he might when he bumps into a man on the street. We soon see that that man drugged him. As he starts to fade out, a gang walks in, shatters his phone, and attacks- leaving a distressed Savannah calling his name.
And there it is. I won’t talk about spoilers here, but the preview for the next episode alone has me very anxious. Next week’s episode looks like a brutal one. And even aside from Morgan being taken hostage, what does Savannah want to talk about. Needless to say, there’s a lot to panic about. This is not what I meant when I said I wanted more to happen with our characters. I was thinking more along the lines of Reid getting a love interest who doesn’t either die or try to kill him.
Next Week: Derek