- A family consisting of two parents and their son break into a home, kill the parents and kidnap their daughter. As the investigation proceeds, the BAU team begin to suspect that what they're dealing with is bigger than they thought.
- Ten year old Cate Hale is abducted from her rural Alabama home while her sleeping mother and stepfather are killed, their throats slashed. Although the BAU realize that time is of the essence since most abducted children do not survive past the first 24 hours, Cate is later released, physically unharmed. The BAU believe her release was due to the fact that she has epilepsy, which the unsub did not know of prior to her abduction. Cate recounts that her abductors were a family: a mother, father and son around her age. From Cate's stories of the abduction and later evidence found, the BAU piece together that the abduction and murders have a ritualistic nature to them. During the investigation, a second young girl in the area is abducted, her parents also killed in a similar manner. It isn't until Garcia does a search of past similar cases - abducted young girls with their parents killed - that the BAU begins to understand the full nature of this case and the rituals involved, in addition to who the mother abductor potentially could be.—Huggo
- Mom, Dad and child drive in the dead of night. The family sedan arrives at a house. "What if she doesn't like me?" the boy says. "Do I have to meet her this way?" Mom says yes, and the seemingly happy clan runs to the front door. Mom spreads broken glass in front of the door while dad breaks and enters. What the hell?
We're about to find out. "A husband and wife were murdered at their home while they were sleeping," Jordan tells Hotch. "Their 10-year-old daughter went missing." The bodies were found one hour ago. The team scrambles to get to the plane. Only Jordan hesitates. The viewer begins to wonder if she can take this job.
Back in crazy land, the 10-year-old girl is tied up and being kept in the closet. The boy we met earlier hands her a chalice of water at the urging of mom and dad. "I'm going to call you Eleyna," the boy says. Again: what the hell?
The plane, in the meantime, is in the air and headed for Alabama. Jordan explains that the victims' throats were slashed and discovered by the missing girl's biological father, Jim Scheuren. Sometime later, Derek and Rossi arrive at the scene of the crime. Blood everywhere. The lack of a struggle indicates to Derek that there were two unsubs. Both victims were killed at the same time.
Back at police headquarters, Hotch interviews a drunken Jim Scheuren. The poor man is terribly worried about his daughter. Hotch doesn't help matters: "We think that someone has targeted Cate specifically." Jim isn't much help at first but eventually offers up a nugget: Cate has epilepsy. Hotch notes that her medicine wasn't taken from the scene. Worse: one of the primary causes of seizures is stress. The team may have less time than they think.
CUT to a Winnebago rolling down a dark road. Turns out little Cate has had a seizure and creepy dad has decided that she is "no good." The tenement on wheels comes to a stop and father and son exit. They have the body of Cate rolled up in a carpet. They unceremoniously toss the body into a ravine. Is she dead?
Not a chance. At daybreak, spunky Cate emerges from the carpet and stumbles into the road!
Emily arrives at the hospital to interview Cate. The nurse warns that the seizure could have caused retrograde amnesia. So, Emily performs a "cognitive interview," which is more about feelings than clear memories. We FLASHBACK with poor Cate. Cold. Fear. Creepy dad fella with a foreign accent. She is put in the trunk of a car. Then a closet in an RV. Bells. The boy. She SCREAMS! Emily reports her findings to Hotch.
Derek and Rossi arrive at a nearby RV park to interview the owner. She seems to remember a family passing through -- one with a father who spoke "foreign." The owner wouldn't have remembered the family at all, though, if it weren't for all the glass they left behind. "Glass?" Derek asks. You betcha, hotshot. Glass everywhere.
Back at headquarters, Rossi explains that the family is grooming their son to kill. Also, they spread the glass on purpose -- as a good-luck ritual. "Everything they do is part of a ritual," he explains. Spencer theories the unsubs might be Romanian gypsies. "Whatever ritual they're trying to play out didn't fit their needs," he says. Meaning: the family will kill and kidnap again. And soon at that.
Sure enough, the creepy family is busy scouting at a nearby shopping center. The boy notices a blonde girl walking through the parking lot with her parents. Dad notices his son noticing. "She's a fine choice," he says. Shiver.
And now for more shivers. Garcia calls with horrible news: There are more than 30 cases of missing girls whose parents have been killed. The cases, all unsolved, date back to 1909. "The time between the kills were long enough and the regions of the country so spread out that it never showed up as serial," Spencer explains. Says Derek: "It looks like its been going on for generations."
And guess what? Another girl has gone missing. And another pair of parents has been killed. And more glass has been spread. "So what are they doing with these girls?" Spencer asks. As if on cue, Garcia calls. A hair fiber found the carpet matches a missing girl who was taken in 1971. Translation: That little girl, now a grown woman, is one of the unsubs! Creepy mom's identity has been revealed. "I think that's why these unsubs pick girls the same age as the boy," Rossi says. "They're making wives." Meanwhile, the police have discovered a burning RV. Spencer, Derek and Rossi head out to investigate while Garcia digitally ages a photograph of the kidnapped little girl turned crazy cult mom.
At the burned trailer, Rossi discovers a mannequin with bells on it. Turns out dad was training the boy to pick pockets. If the boy could pick the jacket on the mannequin without ringing the bells sown into the garment, then he would be ready to "work a crowd." Derek asks where the nearest shopping center might be located. Bingo.
CUT to the mall. Security hands out photos of Garcia's digitally aged photo. Before you can say "plot twist," creepy mom sets off alarms exiting a store. The cops swarm and the woman is arrested. Local law enforcement is ecstatic, but Hotch isn't so sure. "They've been stealing for years and have never been caught," he says. "This was too easy."
Nevertheless, the team wastes little time in interrogating deal ol' mum, who takes sole responsibility for all the killings. Naturally, Hotch and Emily aren't buying it. Furthermore, Emily refers to the woman by her birth name. "My name is not Cathy," the unsub says. "It's Sylvia." She is clearly in denial. Emily shows the woman a picture of herself as a young, innocent child. Hotch then shows her pictures of the mutilated bodies, including her own mother and father. Cathy/ Sylvia begins to crack. Rossi enters with a list of fences in the area where the stolen goods can be sold. She flinches at a certain name. Bingo! Next, she promises to reveal where her son is hiding if the team allows her to see him. Emily agrees.
CUT to creepy dad, exiting a rundown pawnshop. Cop cars, sirens blazing, emerge out of nowhere! Derek leads the charge and personally cuffs dad. "You'll never find my boy!" he screams. Says Spencer: "We already have." The kidnapped girl, meanwhile, is safe.
Later, the boy is led into police headquarters by Rossi, who takes him to his mother. "It's just you now," mom says. She then whispers something to her son in a foreign tongue. But what? Luckily, all of this was caught on tape and Rossi orders a translation. While the team waits for the translation to arrive, Jordan announces that J.J. will be back from maternity leave soon -- and that she will be returning to counter terrorism. Goodbye sweet Jordan. We hardly knew ya.
Back to the main plot: the translation has arrived. And what does it say, Rossi? "Don't tell them about your brothers." Mom smiles. The team looks horrified. And the creepy cycle continues elsewhere. Shiver.
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