S3E14 - “Damaged”
Open in a house with shaky cam footage, blood, kid screams. Ah shit its Rossi having a bad dream and bad shining references. Its night. He looks at some charms on his nightstand. Kids heads.
Cut and its dinner? Or breakfast? It’s Garcia’s apartment and there is someone banging on her door. We watch as she begrudgingly walks from the shower to open the door to an irate Rossi. He’s upset because the files he got from her “don’t have everything”. He berates her and she’s like i was showering, this can wait until the morning, etc. suddenly we see Xander (I don’t remember his characters name) come out nakey. Its very awkward and supposed to be funny but it doesn’t land (or maybe i’m pretentious). Garcia is suddenly like “i know that the fraternization between bureau departments is against--” but Rossi don’t give a fuck and just interrupts with “it’s the 20th anniversary of this crime. 20 years tomorrow 3 children woke up and found their parents murdered whoever did it is still out there. Its time they paid for it”. And he just walks out. Like a boss.
Cut and we a stripper walking to her car. The bouncer/security guard walks her part way, and there is some bitching about tips. She arrives at her car and there is a dude pissing near by. He’s all like “you danced good” and she references that he only tipped her $2 which is garbage. If you go to a strip club, you gotta bring cash. She pulls a knife on him when he starts talking about how paying the cover charge should’ve been enough. Girlboss gatekeep gaslight. He walks away and she gets in her car. A stuffed animal was left on her dashboard? And a truck starts following her as she drives away.
Cut back to the BAU and Garcia is melting down over Rossi showing up, and she spills that tea with JJ. JJ is like don’t worry about it, and then they shit on showering with someone which I think means they just aren’t good at it. JJ gets a phone call from Hotch’s wife, and apparently she is not able to get ahold of Hotch. JJ is able to get through to him, and he says “its a personal matter”.
We cut away and see that the stripper we saw earlier was one of the kids involved in the case Rossi is all pressed about. She wakes up on the couch from a nightmare flashback to finding her mom murdered, and her brother is sitting with her. We find out that her brother got fired from work for punching a guy. Apparently, she only made $53 bucks so she’s “the worst stripper in the world” and she’s like “to make more you have to show more, and going topless is bad enough” girl this is so wrong. They talk about how they need to eat, etc. but it also sounds like their sister is out with a friend. The brother references the stuffed animal that was in her car and says “you got your yearly gift” and apparently he was left a gift too - a baton? Like the twirling kind? And it was left on the front porch. Spooky. 20th anniversary gifts.
Cut and we see Rossi outside of a house. I’m guessing it is the house the kids parents were murdered in? Back at the BAU Prentiss and her bad haircut are in Rossi’s office? There are papers strewn around the office, which is super out of character for him. Garcia spills the beans and says that he’s in Indianapolis so they take the jet to meet him.
Rossi is upset because the local authorities stopped searching the case - “its been 20 years”. Apparently, the house is completely empty - and Rossi fucking OWNS THE HOUSE. He bought it at an auction two weeks after the murder. He admits to having gotten attached to the kids despite not having any sort of personal connection to them.
Back at the BAU Xander(Kevin) spooks Garcia while she is working. He think she is beautiful “multitasking”. She is very tense because she’s worried that they’re gonna get in trouble for fraternizing. Xander wants to stand up to Rossi and be allowed to “kiss” his girlfriend at work. Garcia is into it, but also is like “bro never fucking try talking to Rossi”.
The rest of the team is on the jet (cue mac), and they’re talking about how they are not able to find very much in the file either. The murder weapon was a long axe, but they also realize that they was likely not an FBI case. They ask Garcia to cross-reference with other murders in the area, because given how brutal it was, it likely was not a one time thing. Rossi calls Garcia because she was running more fingerprints. Garcia tells Rossi that they found his office in disarray, so they were worried, despite him being unbothered. He’s upset when she spills that they are coming to see him, but it could be much worse?
The rest of the team crashes date with himself at a fancy bar. He tells them all to go home, even though they are offering to help - JJ even offers to make this case an official BAU case.
Back at the bar, Rossi talks about how he was in Indianapolis for a rapist case, when he was the first on the scene for the murder case. He talks about how the axe had been left behind but also wiped clean - it also belonged to the family. He talks about the case - how he knew the kids were there but didn’t eliminate them. How the one good print was on the inside of the bedroom door. How he was both disorganized but organized at the same time. He talks about how he could hear the kids crying/screaming, even before he got out of the car to go inside. (the writing in this scene is really good).
Cut and we see Alicia - the younger sister - making out with some guy in a jeep. Alicia and Connie have a bit of a spat and then Rossi shows up. But Connie tells him off - she tells him to go away, apparently, they want to be left alone. He so dejectedly says “I’ll leave you kids alone”. And she then adds “and you’ll stop it with the gifts, too?” to which he slowly turns and is like “gifts?” and she goes on to be like they remind of us the worst day of our lives! But uh oh, he never sent them any gifts.
Prentiss clocks how the gifts are really cheap, and how they would show up on the porch or in the car. He is stalking. Morgan shares how obsession crimes are usually one of two kinds. “Sadists who want to make the families relieving the crimes” or “guilt-laden offenders, desperately trying to find some type of way to apologize”. Additionally, they usually use something they know will remind the family of the crime - jewelry, newspaper clippings, etc. But in this case, these gifts don’t look like they are trying to inflict pain - so they surmise it is guilt-laden. Then Prentis points out that they actually look like something a child would send. They make a comparison to maybe this unsub being like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. so maybe this person was assisted by a parent or someone because there was still no evidence.
Morgan tells them to call Garcia and look for other cases - not murder cases - that involved children parks, playgrounds, involving children but not murdered or abused. An adult who wants to play with children - an intellectual match.
Garcia calls back and things are weird. She says there is a “scad” of cases related to this criteria, but the thing is, it is always the last week of March or first week of April. And then it travels across the country in two week bursts. A specific schedule. And then Rossi is like A CARNIVAL. Apparently this family went to a carnival the day before they were murdered. A clown was following them and made a shitty balloon animal.
They look up the carnival and find them setting up. The FBI swarms in on the carnival, and all the workers are starting to pack up. And THEN. AND THEN Rossi utters the best line ever in television history. “Where’re you headed next? Springfield?...We’d like to talk to you about one of your clowns.”
The guy is like WE DONT HAVE CLOWNS. THOSE ARE FOR THE CIRCUS. Gatekeeping the clowns!! They press him - saying how maybe he’s a balloon animal making fella. But once they press him this guy cracks so fast. Basically they broke into the fucking house because he wanted to see Connie again, and the dad came in with an axe cause uh, obviously. Morgan and JJ find him and it is so pathetic. This is so fucking sad! He just needed help!! The episode ends with Rossi giving them ownership of their house back. He also gives them the keychain from the beginning. Apparently the grandmother let him keep it until they found them.
And then Xander is back at the BAU and is like “we need to talk!” uh! Cringe!
Rating Criteria:
Criminal/Serial Killer: 10/20
Character development/ character arcs: 20/20
Forensics/Context: 10/20
Script writing: 20/20
Background characters: 20/20
Overall: 80/100