"Epilogue" is Episode 6 in Season 7 of "Criminal Minds." The episode aired on November 2, 2011 at 9 pm ET on CBS.
The episode opens at night with a drunk father beating on his son, Chase. Next, it's morning and a camper in a canoe pages his friend over a walkie-talkie; police have found multiple bodies in the lake. Then he sees this friend, Nick, getting blitz-attacked by Chase, who was hiding in the bushes.
Back at the BAU, we learn three male victims were found in Ridge Canyon Lake (in CA). Their bodies were weighed down with rocks and hidden in shrubbery, while all the victims originally went missing about 30 miles from the lake. Agents guess that the unsub is familiar with the lake territory and probably lives nearby.
SPOILERS!
"To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable." - Erich Fromm
On the flight over, agents discuss how lack of physical and sexual abuse in the victims shows that the unsub gets off on drowning them. The question is whether he performs water burials to remember former victims, or if he's using water as a 'forensic countermeasure.'
Garcia informs agents that Nick's body was found 20 miles away at a different lake- Lake Banter. It wasn't weighed down like the former victims. Agents guess due to characteristics of former victims that Nick was a random kill, and the unsub is either trying to fool police or is frustrated that his normal dumping site is being used.
Prentiss and Reid discover from the ME that the unsub drowned his victims and then tried to resuscitate them, but was unsuccessful. Only the first victim showed no signs of resuscitation, as he was strangled and then drowned. This suggests that the unsub feels powerful in bringing these victims back to life, which implies that the unsub feels powerless in his everyday life.
Meanwhile, we see the unsub tamper with a girl's jet-ski, lead her away on shore, and then drown/try to resuscitate her. Clearly his methods of kill stem from an incident with his abusive father; his father pushed him into the water and, failing to resuscitate him, buried him (although we clearly see the son/unsub is still alive).
Agents make their profile: The unsub is a white male, mid-late 20s, a local, and a 'sadist with a god-complex who gets off on killing victims over and over.' He switched from dragging and burying bigger victims to targeting smaller, weaker victims and not dragging them whatsoever. Blood left on the last victim indicates the unsub has cancer of the blood- he's dying- and this could explain why he's not bothering to weigh his victims down anymore.
Jake Shepherd, the first victim, was attending a baptism when the unsub found him- like the unsub, Jake had an accident and was technically dead but came back to life. Agents suspect that the unsub may be drowning/bringing his victims back to life in order to talk to them about what death is like, as he too is dying. Meanwhile, the unsub picks up another male victim, under the ruse that his mother was in an accident.
Agents learn that the first victim, Jake, was a hoodlum that turned into a 'saved' believer after witnessing a glimpse of light when he passed to the other side. Reid chimes in that when he almost died, he saw a similar light, but Prentiss only saw darkness. Agents agree that the unsub may've had a former near-death experience, and because he's dying now a second and final time, he wants to see if the experience will be the same. Thus, he wants his victims to have two near-death experiences so he can compare.
From Garcia, agents learn that the unsub, named Chase, killed his father but was diagnosed with cancer at age 10; now he has three months to live. Agents find Chase holding his next victim at knifepoint; he lets the victim go, and tries to drown himself, but agents save him.
"The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it." - Mary Catherine Bateson Overall, this episode was interesting as throughout its entirety, viewers were unsure of exactly what the unsub's motives were. By the conclusion, however, we see the plot-holes. Why didn't the unsub just do some online research? Seems a lot quicker than repeatedly drowning numerous innocent people.
There are no comments yet