In last week’s episode, the agents arrested an Unsub who had been killing for decades and JJ wished she could tell her friends the truth about her relationship with Cruz. In tonight’s episode, “The Caller”, the BAU investigates a child abduction that is similar to a cold case from years earlier. Read on to find out what the minds behind Criminal Minds have planned for us this week.
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Don’t Answer the Phone
The team is called in after a little boy — Andy — goes missing and blood is found on his front door. Garcia tells the team that Andy’s parents have been getting creepy phone calls for the past two weeks. In the calls, a child’s voice says “I’m gonna get you” over and over again. This is why I screen my calls, especially late at night.
After Andy goes missing, the same child’s voice calls with a different message: “Did you see what I did?” Reid points out that the signature sounds similar to a case Gideon worked 15 years earlier, in which another boy went missing and his father received creepy calls. That boy was later found dead.
The agents talk to Andy’s parents, and to the father of the first boy who was killed, and realize that they received the same calls from the same Unsub. Sadly, despite the team’s best efforts, Andy is soon found dead just like the first boy. The agents clear both boys’ parents as suspects, as they are too distraught to have been responsible.
Surrogate Families
While the agents are looking into the calls as a way to identify the Unsub, Andy’s father gets another creepy call and this time, his wife is taken. Changing victim types like that is rare and the agents realize that the abductions are personal to the Unsub. The first victim’s mother killed herself a year before her son was taken and the agents figure out that the Unsub targeted that family because of his own mother’s suicide.
When the Unsub was just a boy, his father abused his mother and made the Unsub watch. The Unsub’s mother thought death was the only way out and tried to kill herself, as well as the Unsub. The Unsub survived and years later, when he saw a dynamic between the boys’ parents similar to the one between his own parents, it acted as a trigger. The victims’ families became surrogates for his own and the Unsub killed the boys in a misguided attempt to save them from their fathers. The agents realize the Unsub abducted Andy’s mother for the same reason.
A Less-than-Happy Ending
The agents go to the Unsub’s home and Blake finds a bunch of old tapes. She realizes that the Unsub used a recording of his own voice in the creepy calls. While Blake is watching more of the Unsub’s footage, the Unsub sneaks up behind her, prepared to shoot. Reid manages to get the drop on the Unsub and kills him before he can kill Blake. They find Andy’s mother alive and she returns home to grieve with her husband.
Tonight’s episode is all about the case, with no B-plot dedicated to any of the team members. Normally this would bother me, but tonight’s case is compelling enough on its own. The episode is made even more compelling thanks to the actors who play Andy’s parents, both of whom give powerful performances.
What did you think of tonight’s episode? Did the creepy calls freak you out or was that just me? Were you bummed there was no team-related B-plot or do you think the episode was strong enough on its own? Hit the comments section and let us know your thoughts.
Criminal Minds airs Wednesdays at 9pm on CBS.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
