S4E8 - “Masterpiece”
The episode opens with the classic cm shaky cam and color changes. We see what would otherwise be a lovely home with a big porch in the woods, but the basement seems ominous. There seems to be a camera in the door taking photographs repeatedly. It appears those being photographed are a young woman and some children - all are very distressed. We get some imagery of the mona Lisa, the last supper, a rose, and a lot of spirals. Hmmmmm. Maybe because this episode is called Masterpiece! The classical music playing is also a very nice touch. The woman comes up to the camera, and we see her screaming, crying and sobbing.
Cut and now we see Reid and Rossi talking to a college class - they are advertising that they should all apply to the FBI. Rossi is killing it, and Reid is striking out. He intimidates everyone with his academic achievements and tries to tell them a philosophy joke. Rossi is like “don’t”, but he does anyway. He is met with silence. One of the students is like “did you ever shoot anybody?” and it is TENSE.
Now we see JJ’s replacement, Agent Todd, because she’s on baby duty. She is fumbling a bit with a local detective? Police officer? He does not like that she said “if the team is interested” in regards to them potentially taking his case. Morgan rushes in to aid her in navigating this situation, Morgan even says “I’ll call you personally”. Agent Todd is upset with Morgan for trying to help her, and sasses him.
Cut and now we see Rossi and Reid leaving the school; Rossi is like “we want them to think the FBI is “cool”’. Reid is like “I keep telling them not to send me here” but apparently the BAU/FBI continues to do so because he’s young. They are interrupted when…oh man…a character approaches them. And friends, it is George Constanza from Seinfeld. We see this utter cheese of a man with a long silver wig, glasses shaped kind of like octagons, and a white suit. His looks is really up there competing with Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games. He approaches Reid and suggests an alternate punchline to the existential joke that Reid presented to the class.
Reid and Rossi begin to leave, but Mr Snowmiser continues to follow them - he introduces himself as “Mr Rothchild”, and walks with them. He compliments Reid over and over, and then asks if he can show them something. He hands them a file, and inside are photos of women screaming - they are like, um wtf, what are these, and Rothchild is like “7 homicide victims”. They’re like??? And he’s like “the bodies have never been found”. He says “acid is a very tidy way of disposing something.” He says: “In a bit less than 9 hours five more will be dead. Unless you can find a way to save them.” And then we flourishes and throws the photographs down the stairs and this is when i went into orbit. Absolute orbit.
Back at the BAU Agent Todd is angrily asking Hotch if her job performance is doing okay. She’s getting defensive bout her job performance and its STUPID. Hotch gets a phone call from Rossi explaining what just happened. We see that Reid, Rossi and Rothchild are all leaving campus - Rothchild in handcuffs. Rossi says he gets something “hinky” off of Rothchild, and Hotch is like yea, this should be looked into. Rossi goes up to Reid and is like “don’t forget a word he says!” because that’s the purpose Reid serves.
Now we see Garcia and her boyfriend - remember, she has a boyfriend! Hotch comes into her office and tells her that she’s gonna be getting the photographs from Rothchild. Rothchild tells Rossi in the car that he has read Rossi’s books, and he questions Reid’s degrees. Prentis tries to be nice to Jordan Todd and Jordan continues to be insufferable.
We learn that a girl named Kaylee Robinson has been adducted along with the four children she was with - she runs a daycare center out of her house. These are who the BAU believes to be Rothchild’s next five victims.
Rossi appreciates Rothy’s pendant - his jewelry. Morgan is over his pretentious shit. They put Rothy in a room for questioning, and he specifically requests Reid be the one to question him. Rossi says he has a “god complex”, and Reid is like “I never have any normal fans” YOU HAVE MEEEE. Rossi also suspects that since Rothchild has a god complex, he will accidentally let something slip regarding Kaylee and the four children. They realize that the 7 original women could be the “button to push” so they get to work on trying to ID who the seven originally women are.
We cut and see Kaylee and the kids. They’re in an underground bunker? Basement of sorts? All of them are very panicked, and suddenly gas masks fall from the ceiling and hang there - Kaylee directs all the kids to grab a mask and put it on. I guess some sort of toxin or gas is being pumped into the air.
Garcia is saying that there are thousands of missing women who could have been victims. Additionally, they are trying to figure out where Kaylee and the kids could have been hidden after being abducted. Hotch says it will be a house, and Reid points out that Rothchild was late to the presentation at the college, and given when he arrived at the presentation, it would be been 2.5 hours after the abduction, so with that information, he has to be somewhere within that local radius. Garcia gets started on mapping out the areas.
This is where we kind of get a profile?
He is obsessively neat and clean
He did research on both Reid and Rossi
He abducts five people then gets to a scheduled recruitment session at a specific time - extensive pre-planning
All of his previous abductees are brunette?
He has no criminal record - his fingerprints brought up nothing - he’s not in any system, he’s a ghost
He has no passport, no drivers license, never been in the military, and never been a teacher.
He is a professor who doesn’t teach
Perhaps he is a researcher who is on a grant
This would give him the time to do these abductions
He is a narcissist, a seemingly remorseless psychopath
Agent Todd is directed to get permission or them to look into Kaylee’s disappearance, and Rossi tells Reid that he will not be allowing Reid to question Rothchild or be in the room with him.
We see Garcia say some bad lines - bad writing on the shows part - and as she gets up from her computer, she suddenly gets a message. It is an email from “Unknown” with a link to http://www.goldenrat.net she opens the link and guys. Unsubs be streaming.
Rossi goes back to Rothchild and he is questioning why Reid is not coming to him. Rossi says that Reid is busy, and he’s like “you have something more important than me?” to which Rossi says “My dry cleaning is more important than you”. Rothchild gets up and opens the door to leave because Rossi calls him a fraud, and upon opening the door Prentis is on the other side. He freaks the fuck out. Guys. its women. As Rossi puts it, this is not a man who can confront women on equal footing. So we know that he blitz attacks the women he abducts. After Prentis leaves, Georgie is like, what a waste of time, you’re not even asking what the rules to the game are. Rossi is like “rules?” and Georgie hands over his watch pointing out that it is now 2pm.
We cut to black and white - we see Kaylee and the kids. There is a little spiral - a crew of sorts - above Kaylee and her mask, and it drips acid onto her arm. Back to George “And then there were four!” We see Kaylee trying to direct the kids away from the dropping acid, and then suddenly a wall closes across the one furthest away, separating the kid from the rest of them. Rothchild also says every two hours one of them will be dead.
Cut and we now see Garcia showing Prentis and Hotch the footage. They point out that it is weird that he would provide gas masks if he is filling up the space with gas - Hotch suggests that the masks are serving another purpose - they are evenly spaced out, and so the masks are likely to keep them all in specific positions. Garcia continues to narrow down the list of missing women.
Hotch asks Rossi if he is making progress with Rothchild and suggests that maybe they send Reid into the questioning. And now it is Rossi’s turn to get defensive and insecure - being like YOU THINK IM NOT INTELLIGENT ENOUGH??? But Hotch eventually backs down and is like, okay, okay, you go glen coco. Now we see Morgan and Todd in the car, and Morgan is like, Jordan remember you are a part of this team. Its not them, it is “we”.
Now we see Rossi questioning Rothchild and he is like ‘did you know that I was born with an extra Y chromosome?” and this is where i lost it even more!, and Rossi is like, obviously not. Rothchild is like “do you know what that means?” no “I was born to be a killer” NO IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT. Roth tries to say that killing is genetic, and Rossi is like shut up man, nah it is NOT.
Todd and Morgan arrive at Kaylee’s home Her husband is there. They look in the home and see that a lot of toys were left on the floor. It is also an odd pattern for the toys to have been left in - especially for six year olds. The rest of the team continues to map out the abductions. They notice that two of the women are from the same area, and three from another. Morgan sends the photograph of the toys to the rest of the team, and Reid goes all Sherlock on us. I am crying. He realizes that it is 1 1 2 3 5, he runs into the questioning room, snatches off the pendant around Roth’s neck, and is like “I KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM” and then runs back out.
Garcia pulls up the map of Virginia, and Reid begins to explain. The golden ratio - golden rat - and people who we find attractive have that ratio in their face. And guys. IT IS THE FUCKING FIBONACCI SEQUENCE. Using the spiral, and the pendant, they realize that they must be in Chester VA> the team is stoked, although Rossi still feels like something is off. Rossi goes to question Roth some more while the rest of the team goes to Chester VA.
Roth goes on to say all this nonsense about humanity and perfection. He thinks humanity should be eradicated and says that Rossi also thinks so because he has read his books. Roth continues to misinterpret and quote Rossi’s books. Garcia tells Rossi that the team is entering the house, and after she leaves, Roth is like “they will never make it out of that house, David. It was never about that perfect woman, or those wonderful children. It is about your team. Your merry band of five. They complete my sequence.” Rossi starts to stress, yelling to Garcia to get Hotch on the phone. Roth continues to be like THEY WERE DEAD THE MINUTE THEY STEPPED INTO THAT HOUSE. He yells to get Prentis or Reid on the phone because Hotch isn’t answering.
Rossi is like why, what did I do? And we get that overdone villain confession. Roth is like “William grace, the man you called the face of pure evil, my brother.” my life ended the day you arrested him. Every time people talked about William grace, everyone talked about his parent and his brother. Basically he lost everyone and everything because his brother was arrested. People were then afraid of him. “My brother hadn’t been alone in the darkness. I shared the same genetics.” So he wanted vengeance. On Rossi.
And then Rossi is like “You get all that?” and Garcia is like yep! Turns out they were recording everything, and yes, the team is fine because they found acid tanks around the house and it ha d been booby trapped to release the acid upon the entrance of the home. But they anticipated this so yay team. Additionally, Kaylee and the kids are all fine. Because! As Reid figured out - Kaylee and the kids ere all just decoys, he wouldn’t have killed 10 people in one afternoon - that is not part of the pattern. Turns out though, that Roth will be charged on murdering those seven women because even though there isn’t any evidence, his taped confession will likely be enough. As Rossi leaves, there is a great slow mo hair moment for Rothchild as he and tries to attack Rossi, and Rossi is like okay you coward.
Now we see Todd apologize to Morgan, and then tells Morgan he needs to make that personal phone call to that one detective. And it is a happy ending for everyone but Rothchild. AND IT ENDS WITH AN MLK JR QUOTE.
Rating Criteria:
Criminal/Serial Killer: 20/20
Character development/ character arcs: 10/20
Forensics/Context: 15/20
Script writing: 20/20
Background characters: 20/20
Overall: 85/100