Criminal Minds - Scared to Death (Episode 48)

This is the first episode without Gideon, and let me tell you his smart witt was missed. A young woman peers in fear through the dirty window set into the top of a wooden trunk. She bangs on the window, begging to be let out. Dr. Stan Howard places a flashlight on the trunk, and asks her if it is “worse than she thought.” The woman gasps for breath and screams in fear as he slides a wooden panel over the window, shutting out her face. The screaming is muffled now, as he arranges magazines on the top of the trunk that he is using as a coffee table in his office. Dr. Howard sits at the desk, opens his journal and makes notes about the woman’s behavior – noting that her anxiety level is at “10.” He realizes that the screams and gasps have stopped, quickly checks on the woman, and then notes she lost consciousness after 8 minutes. He turns off his desk lamp and sits back in his chair.

Morgan and Prentiss are standing beside Reid’s desk at the BAU as Reid rereads the note Gideon had left him. Garcia enters carrying boxes of the items Gideon had left in his office, and she tells the team he left everything except his photographs. Reid mentions that Gideon thought of those photographs as his family, and Morgan and Prentiss exchange glances, concerned about Reid’s demeanor. Hotchner sits in his office staring at a handprint picture made by his son, Jack. Strauss informs Hotchner that Jason Gideon is officially no longer a member of the bureau. She places several very thick files on Hotchner’s desk and asks him for his input as to Gideon’s replacement – they don’t want to leave his post empty for long. JJ leans into the office to let Hotch know the team is ready for its briefing on the latest case.

Turning to the photographs posted on the board behind him, he tells them that Portland, Oregon police have found a mass grave with three bodies, and another body nearby. Deaths were caused by different means – from asphyxiation to burning alive with no sexual assault. The means tell the team the killer is a sadist, but with no sexual components, it is difficult to determine if the unsub is male or female. The latest victim was Jenny Whitman, found in a lone grave. She had never been reported missing – only one of the victims was – Rick Holland – but when the family began receiving emails from Rick saying he “needed time to figure things out,” they called off the search. Hotchner believes that this behavior – the unsub sending emails in the victims’ names – indicates that the psychopath is trying to cover his tracks. If the burial of three victims together, and then Jenny Whitman’s lone grave, is a pattern, the unsub will be looking for two new victims.

At the FBI Field Office in Portland, Special Agent Bill Calvert introduces himself to the team. Morgan immediately recognizes Agent Calvert’s Boston accent. Calvert, Prentiss and JJ stay at the office to meet with the family of the victim, while Hotchner, Morgan and Reid go to Jenny Whitman’s apartment. In the old apartment building, only Morgan and Reid fit in the small elevator, so Hotchner decides to take the stairs to Jenny’s 4th floor apartment. Shortly after the elevator makes a shaky start, it jerks to a stop with a groan. Morgan teases Reid about being scared and then the elevator suddenly jerks, and both agents are scared. They push the alarm button repeatedly, and Reid nervously motions Morgan to pry the doors open. The doors won’t budge and the elevator jerks again. Reid and Morgan are both panicking now. The elevator doors jerk open, and Morgan jumps out just at Hotchner reaches it on the 4th floor.

Prentiss is restless at the Field Office. They have been over the details of the case files again and again. Agent Calvert tells them that Jenny moved to Portland away from her family to make a fresh start.

JJ and Agent Calvert are listing the first places he checked out when he moved to Portland, including a coffee place, a gym, a doctor, a dentist and a dry cleaner. They will have to canvass the neighborhoods of all four of the victims.

Dr. Howard pushes Patrick away with the crook. Patrick struggles in the water, but the fear has overwhelmed him and he goes under. Dr. Howard sits down on the dock and makes a notation in his journal before collecting his things and walking away. At a press conference, JJ makes a plea to the young people of Portland, warning any newcomers to the city to be aware of a killer who may be stalking them. Dr. Howard is listening to the broadcast in his darkened office.

That night Dr. Howard finishes making notes about Patrick’s death in his journal and switches off his desk lamp. He sits quietly in the dark. His wife is angry when he arrives home late, complaining that he did not call and that their daughter, Jessica, has been asking for him. Upstairs, Jessica wants to leave the light on in her room when she goes to bed. Her father refuses, telling her that she can only grow if the light is out, and that turning off the light is for her own good. He studies her face as he switches off one light, and then the other. I cant’s believe someone who was abused this way as a child would fo it to their own offspring.

The next morning, a jogger finds the body of Patrick Walker on the shore. As officers retrieve the body, Morgan goes to check on anything else found in the water. When Hotchner mentions the means of deaths of the victims – fire, asphyxiation, drowning – Reid makes a connection: each of these modes of death can be classified as an Anxiety Disorder. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual describes five subtypes of phobias – this idea came to him when he and Morgan were stuck in the elevator. These people are being killed by their fears.

Prentiss and Reid joke about Hotchner’s even more intense attitude now that Gideon is gone as they canvass one of the victim’s neighborhoods. Stopping a moment on the street corner, Prentiss asks Reid how he is doing. After an initial sarcastic, “Oh, I’m great,” Reid compares Gideon’s letter that “explained everything” with his father’s abandonment of him and his mother when he was a child. Reid thought of Gideon as a courageous man – standing up to some very sick people in his life. But this note addressed to Spencer was anything but courageous. He pulls the envelope with his name on it out of his pocket, saying “It’s addressed to me, but I’m not the only person he abandoned.” Prentiss challenges him to read the letter again – he’s missing something. Reid brushes that idea off because of his eidetic memory, but she reminds him that even though he had ten years with his own father he erased those memories because it was too painful to remember. Why did Gideon only explain himself to one person? To Reid?

Dr. Howard has a new patient - Missy. She sits across from him explaining that, in the time she’s lived in her new city, she’s only seen the inside of her apartment. She is afraid of being buried alive, and who won’t.

At a neighborhood laundromat, Prentiss and Reid find a bulletin board ad participation in a controlled research project to get over one’s anxieties. The sign offers $100 to each participant to attend only two sessions. Morgan enters and tells them Patrick Walker joined a local boxing gym, but he’s found nothing else. Prentiss believes that, if they find other flyers for the anxiety study in victims’ neighborhoods, they may have discovered how the killer finds his victims.

Morgan and Prentiss find another flyer in a coffee shop, but it is dated August of 2006. Morgan is concerned: if the unsub had been looking for victims that long ago chances are there are more bodies out there they have not yet found.

Law enforcement searches the rest of the 40-mile Wildwood Trail near the other dump sites. They find eight graves and twelve bodies. Morgan calls Garcia for a trace on the phone number from the flyers. It claims to be the leading researcher in behavioral therapy but there are no tax records or business license and the man who supposedly runs it, Dr. Barry Goodman, doesn’t exist. There is an on-line questionnaire where the killer could be getting all the important details from his victims’ lives.

Missy follows Dr. Howard down to the basement. He explains that, since it is cold and dark it will feel like a cave. She mentions that the cup of tea he gave her has calmed her down. Dr. Howard tells Missy that her state of mind is important, and will help her have complete control. Missy gets dizzy as she walks through the darkened basement room. She falls into his arms, and he drops her into a deep hole in the floor.
The team is comparing notes in the conference room when Reid points out that the person who wrote the website questionnaire mistakenly calls anxiety disorders, “phobias.” The killer is a professional psychologist, but he received his training in the 1980s. Putting all of the information together, Garcia is able to come up with Dr. Stanley Howard. He is married, has an 8-year-old daughter and started a center for abused kids. His practice shut down about a year ago, right when the killings started. He still has a lease on his old office building downtown. Prentiss and JJ go to talk with Mrs. Howard while the rest of the team heads off to Howard’s office building.

Jessica Howard opens the door of the Howard home, but is quickly pulled aside by her mother. While JJ speaks with Jessica in the other room, Prentiss asks Mrs. Howard about her husband. Mrs. Howard is arrogant, claiming that she would know if anything was going on with her husband. When Prentiss tells her Dr. Howard shut down his practice a year ago, she is shocked. Mrs. Howard explains that her husband has had issues since his mother’s death a year ago – he became a psychiatrist because of her.

When Hotchner, Morgan, Reid and Calvert arrive at the location of the office building, they find a vacant lot. Prentiss asks Mrs. Howard if there is any other place Dr. Howard would go and she tells her about a commercial building that is owned by her family.

Hotchner and his team head up to Dr. Howard’s office on the 5th floor. They find an appointment book showing that Missy was his last patient. Hotchner stands on the landing looking up at Dr. Howard’s position at the edge of the roof. He explains that he has found at least 15 people dead – it is over. Hotchner tells him that he’ll never get over his fear if he kills himself. Dr. Howard has no intention of coming down. As he leans over and falls from the roof. Prentiss breaks the news to Mrs. Howard and Jessica that Dr. Howard is dead.

Calvert has found Missy’s car in the parking lot. Hotchner believes that Missy is there somewhere based on Dr. Howard’s parting words to him. Digging quickly with their hands, they find Missy’s arms, and try to clear out enough dirt to raise her out of the hole. Laying her on the floor, Hotchner finds a faint heartbeat, and Missy begins coughing. She’s going to be all right. Garcia gazes at a picture of Missy on her computer screen – she has been saved.

Morgan and Hotchner are the only two awake on the plane ride home. Hotchner is working, and Morgan sits across from him, watching. Finally, Morgan confronts Hotchner – something is wrong, and it’s not about Gideon leaving. Hotchner reminds him that they made a deal not to profile each other, but Morgan persists. Solving this case without Gideon was a big victory for the team, but Hotchner isn’t enjoying it. After a long pause, Hotchner admits to him that his wife Haley has left him and he doesn’t know if she’s coming back.