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"Out of the Light" is Episode 22 in Season 6 of "Criminal Minds." The episode aired on Wednesday, May 4th at 9 pm ET on CBS and features John Kapelos, Jeff Meek, and Time Winters as guest-stars.SPOILERS!
The episode opens with shots of Agent Morgan and Hotchner trying to revive a victim. We then flash to three days previous where we see a woman running from someone in the woods of North Carolina; she falls off a roadside cliff but survives.
In the BAU office, agents learn that three years ago a woman's body was found with similar stab wounds an injuries to that of the current survivor. She was raped and tortured repeatedly; because sadists typically operate "on their own turf," it's assumed the unsub (unidentified subject) is from the area, and the victim somehow escaped. We then see a man in the woods excavating a skull before putting it in a plastic bag.
"Of this alone, even God is deprived: the power of making things that are past never to have been"- Agathon
Reid states, "80 percent of sexual sadists have a dozen or more victims in their past. They lead normal lives and eventually develop god complexes." The agents also believe that the unsub used a ruse to lure his victims, an clearly underestimated them as they escaped despite their induced weakness (they were purposely dehydrated).
Both current and past victims are unidentified, but Reid concludes from orthodontic work and tan-lines that the current victim wasn't "high-risk" like a drug addict or prostitute, but instead is probably from the middle-class and possibly an athlete. Her stab wounds suggest that the unsub used something other than a knife.
The paralyzed victim temporarily awakes to say "he has mercy," but she fades before the agents can get any more information from her. Rossi suggests the unsub is therefore a master manipulator, forcing victims to play out his fantasy in order to stay alive. Meanwhile in the woods, the agents smell pneumonia and discover the hole where the skull was dug up. Three new bodies are found, some of which may be over 10 years old. In total, eight girls have gone missing in the past decade; three of the eight victims were blonde.
Garcia learns of an abandoned car which two teenage girls were lent in order to drive down to Florida, but they never made it. The agents then identify the victim in the hospital as Angela, and her words were not "he has mercy" but "he has Marcy," her friend. Angela's hair being dyed blonde by the unsub suggests he either has a love or hatred for someone of this appearance, most likely hatred according to the wounds. We then see in the unsub's lair, the victim calling him "daddy" per his wishes. Through prior sexual-offense records Garcia discovers an art professor who works directly in the area. At his house Morgan finds a bloody college sweatshirt, while at the school, before the professor is arrested, we see him showing photographic stills of the eye of one of his victims, asking his students to decipher the subject's emotion (fear); (this is also likely where this episode's title comes from).
In questioning, the professor claims he didn't know the victims and would never hurt his students. At his house Reid and Morgan discover the professor has obsessive tendencies and develops all of his own film- the pictures displaying features of over 50 victims. Marcy's parents reveal that Marcy took a course with the professor that she loved; it was held in his home. The agents then discover a fresh but poorly buried body in the professor's backyard; this extreme disorganization compared with the extreme care of burying the other bodies suggests that the professor is being framed. We then again see Marcy held captive, with the unsub coming in to presumably rape her; he calls her "Rose" while we see a picture of a blonde girl hanging on the wall.
We learn that Marcy frequented art festivals and was a member of the local church choir, while the victims all had glass under their fingernails; from this Garcia narrows down a man named Robert who met the professor once, and who happens to work with stained glass as well as own a local restaurant. Agents discover Robert's former wife was hospitalized with mental illness; while she was away Rose was left with Robert, who abused her. The wife attempted to leave with her daughter but Robert always tracked them down, resulting (also from her madness) her driving her and her daughter into a lake, drowning them both. When the agents finally find Robert's house they discover he already left with Marcy, and his delusion that Marcy is his daughter has intensified so that he intends this time to kill both himself and the victim.
Robert evades police and drives into a nearby lake. Morgan dives in to retrieve Marcy but Robert tries to hold her back. In a very dramatic fashion Hotchner dives in and shoots Robert in the head underwater. We then see the scene we saw at the episode's beginning, with Morgan trying to resuscitate the victim; he succeeds.
The show concludes with the professor hanging a photo of the captive Marcy, suggesting he was actually behind the kidnappings or at the very least knew Robert better than he led on. Moreover, it suggests perhaps the professor was recruiting blonde girls for Robert.
"Bring the past, only if you're going to build from it." - Dom©nicoEstrada
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