- The BAU team tracks a serial killer who takes the eyes of his victims.
- The BAU heads to Oklahoma City, OK. to take down a serial killer when he begins taking eyeballs from the victims he has killed for his taxidermy projects. It becomes apparent that the unsub is really disturbed and he targets his victims at night. Meanwhile, Morgan is still adjusting to his role as temporary unit chief, after Hotch steps down so that he can focus on stopping George Foyet aka the Reaper from harming his family. Penelope decides to arrange a very special surprise for Morgan.—dawsonpersi
- Morgan is stepping tentatively into his new role as Chief of the BAU, a role he has agreed to take temporarily in Hotch's forced removal from that position by Section Chief Strauss. Morgan has decided to relinquish the position and hand it back to Hotch after George Foyet, aka the Boston Reaper, is caught, Foyet who is still foremost on Hotch's mind. Rossi is concerned about this change of the guard if only because he sees Morgan as a natural leader who may not want to give up the authority after a taste of it. Regardless, J.J. and Garcia take some measures to make Morgan feel more welcome in the position. The first case the team work on under Morgan's leadership is in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where three people in two separate incidents have been murdered, the only connection between the two incidents being that the victims' eyes were removed. The victimologies and the M.O. of the killings were totally different. It isn't until there are more victims that the BAU begin to understand the importance of how the eyeballs are removed from the bodies, and piece together a connection to the first victim, whose eyes were removed in a different way. Meanwhile, against Garcia's advice, Morgan begins a personal relationship with Tamara Barnes, the family member of a victim from a recent case. Morgan does not tell Garcia about this fact of his personal life.—Huggo
- The last time we saw Hotch, he had resigned as unit chief, handing the reins over the Derek. Derek, meanwhile, got awfully chummy with the sister of a victim -- much to Garcia's chagrin. But enough looking back. What's on the horizon for our BAU team? Cut to a creepy dude watching two young women through a pair of binoculars. This can't be good. He waits until they enter a parking garage and then ATTACKS! Uh oh.
The next morning, Derek meets with Tamara, a past victim's sister. "You helped me reconnect to my job -- myself, really," Derek tells her. She gives him a piece of jewelry that used to belong to her brother. He accepts it. Garcia isnt going to like this AT ALL. Later, the team gathers at Derek's request. J.J. shows gruesome pictures of the latest crop of dead folks in Oklahoma City. "Their eyes have been removed," she points out. None of the team seems particularly surprised, although Derek does note that it's odd for such a killer to keep the orbs. "He's going to need to kill again soon," Derek tells the team. As if they -- and we -- didn't know it.
One private jet ride later, the team introduces itself to the local police. Lt. Brantley provides a rundown of all the killings. "Serial killers usually have a smaller kill zone," Hotch notes. Garcia calls with a history of mental patients with eye obsessions, but could find no obvious connections ... yet. Derek and J.J., in the meantime, visit the sister of the most recent victim. "They want to cremate her, but we need all of her," she tells the pair. In short, sis would really like it if the BAU could return the dead girl's eyes. For once, Derek doesn't make any promises.
The rest of the squad checks in on the first victim -- a male. Interestingly, the first vic's eyes appear to have been ripped out of his skull, while the last victim's eyes look to have been removed with a sharp-edged tool. "This was precise work," the morgue assistant explains. Could the unsub be someone in the medical profession, perhaps?
Cut to a young woman jogging alone along a gravel road. This can't be good -- and, indeed, it isn't. The woman trips. Our mystery unsub suddenly appears and ATTACKS! Uh oh.
The next morning, the team visits the gravel road. The jogger has a knife wound to the neck and no eyes. "Cut out as carefully as the last one," Emily observes. The unsub is definitely improving his technique. Hotch quickly notices trip wire strung across the path. "It's the behavior of a game hunter," Derek notes. Hmm. Could the eyes be a trophy? Back at police headquarters, J.J. tells Derek that the national media has picked up on the story and have begun calling the killer "The Eye Snatcher." Derek sighs. Not good.
Derek then gives the local fuzz the profile, with help from demoted Hotch. "We believe the unsub might have known his first victim, but the rest are random," Derek tells the room. "His large kill zone could be related to a travel pattern in his life." We then cut to two morons sitting in the park after nightfall -- pretty much exactly what J.J. warned people NOT to do during her press conference. Naturally, the mysterious unsub stalks them. They run toward their car, but it's far too late. The unsub has a "view" to a kill. Finders peepers and all that.
Back at HQ, Rossi steps into Derek's makeshift office. "We're having no luck at all finding this guy on paper," says Derek, who clearly hasn't slept a wink. Hotch enters with news: two more are dead. "There's something different about this crime scene, though," he continues. And what's that? "He didn't take the boy's eyes," Hotch says. And why? Because a defense wound ruined one of the orbs before the killer had a chance to pluck them out. In short, the eyes need to be "flawless" in order to be collected. Derek has a brainstorm: what if the unsub isn't a medical professional, but a taxidermist? Spencer likes the idea. "They have anatomy knowledge," he points out. Garcia then calls with new info on the first victim. Turns out that just a few weeks before his murder, the man wrote a check to a local taxidermy service. The owner of that shop just recently died of emphysema and left behind a 30-something son with a history of animal cruelty. Better yet: the son's mother had an eye disease that caused her to go blind. She later died in a car accident when the boy, Earl, was just eight years old. Bingo!
We cut to the team racing to the taxidermist shop, where suspect Earl Wolford has apparently vacated the premises. HOWEVER, they quickly find blood on the floor. Emily theorizes that it belongs to the first victim. "So he comes here to see his animal, they argue, and then this happens," she explains. Derek then notices something odd: many of the stores stuffed animals appear to have human eyes. So THAT's what ol' Earl is up to!
The team then goes over a list of customers -- and those houses conform to the kill zone! There are two more names on the delivery list, so the team splits up and heads to both neighborhoods. It's not long before they discover Earl's van, but no Earl. Hotch is out combing the streets when he suddenly hears cries coming from a nearby construction site. He rounds a corner to discover Earl hunched over a women, a carving tool poised above her face! "Get off of her!" Hotch yells. One brief struggle later, Earl is in cuffs and the woman is safe. Case closed, but not the episode.
Derek confronts Hotch. "You know you should have waited for backup," Derek says. Quips Hotch: "Would you have?" Ha! Looks like the shoe is on the other foot. The team disperses and Derek goes to the home of an earlier victim's sister, promising the return of a certain pair of familial eyeballs. The still grieving sister is grateful.
At the conclusion of the episode, we see Derek taking a seat in his shiny, new office. He could get used to this. Sense a power struggle coming, we do.
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