We start out with Garcia speaking at a group meeting: “Here goes. And uh … this is the part I always leave out …” She goes on to tell the group that her parents were killed in a car accident while they were out looking for her because she had missed her curfew for the second time in one week. When she got home it was “crazy late, like three in the morning.” Her parents weren’t home and the phone rang. Her life “stopped.” She then tells the group that they all have wounds that they want to heal and that is why they come here every week.
We see a red-headed woman who seems deep in thought. “Monica, is there something you wanted to say?” Garcia asks. The woman replies that she believes that time wears you down. She explains that a few weeks ago she walked past the bakery that “we” used to go to and she saw a little girl in hot pink. She begins to cry and says she is sorry. Garcia tells her not to be sorry and another member of the group says that s why they are all here. Garcia wraps up the session. Monica puts her tea cup on the table – this must have some significance seeing as they focused on it – and heads for the door. Garcia follows Monica out of the room and asks what is going on. Monica tells her that yesterday was the anniversary of “Hope’s” disappearance. Garcia is sorry and asks if Monica wants to grab a late dinner and talk. “No,” Monica says, and leaves.
Garcia walks away and Monica walks to her car. She picks up a letter that says, “Dear Mommy, please don’t tell the police. If he finds out I’m writing you he’ll kill me.” There is a knock on Monica’s car window. She looks up, and the person outside the car holds up a missing picture and says, “I see you got one of these too.” Monica looks on her windshield and races out of the car. “What?” she says. “That’s Hope! Who put this here?” The man who knocked on her window (same man that told her “that is why we are all here” during the meeting) tells her that he saw a man and a woman putting them on cars. Monica starts running around the parking lot, and he runs after her. As they are running around the parking lot, the man is telling Monica that the people he saw were leaving when he came out but they couldn’t have gotten too far. “Let’s take my car,” he suggests. They jump in and off they speed.
Now Garcia is leaving and notices that Monica’s car is still in the parking lot, and that her bag is in it.
Monica and Mr. Window Knocker are driving around. She keeps pointing out couples and asking if they are the ones he saw. He tells her that he thinks that they missed them. She snaps that she needs to find them. He looks at her sideways and says, “I can’t imagine how hard yesterday was for you.” She freezes – “What?” He tells her that since she got the letter she’s probably read it a hundred times. She turns, looks at him and asks, “How do you know about the letter?” “Cause I’m the one who took Hope,” he replies. The music becomes eerie, and we head to the opening titles.
Garcia speaks the opening quote: “Hope is faith holding out its hands in the dark.” – George Iles.
A police officer tells Garcia they can’t treat this as a missing person’s case. She shouts that clearly something happened to Monica. Morgan flashes his credentials and says he will take it from here. Morgan tells Garcia that he believes her feeling but she needs her to keep her head in the game. She agrees. Morgan asks if there is any chance that Monica left with someone. Garcia says no and tells him that yesterday was the anniversary of her daughter’s abduction. He looks at her and asks how long she has known her. Five years she says. Morgan asks if her daughter’s abductor has been caught, and Garcia tells him that the case went cold. Morgan asks if Garcia has any idea the effect that anniversaries have on people. Garcia says Monica would never kill herself – she is a survivor. Morgan looks in Monica’s car; he notes that the keys are still in the ignition and she left her purse behind. He reaches in and picks up the letter, and tells Garcia that it’s signed by someone named Hope. Garcia tells Morgan that Hope is Monica’s daughter.
The kidnapper’s truck screeches to a halt in a gas station bay. Monica asks, “What do you mean you took Hope?” He tells her that it’s important that she understands how it all began. They both get out of the truck. She follows him, asking why they are there. She pleads with him that if he just tells her where Hope is she won’t call the police. He tells her that if she does call the police, it will guarantee that she will never see Hope again!
He asks Monica if she recognizes the place they are in. She replies that they used to stop for gas here on the way home. He tells her this is the first place he met Hope. He shows Monica a candy bar and says, “You wouldn’t buy this for her. Do you remember how upset she was?” He tells her that he believes her exact words were: “What part of no do you not understand? Go put it back.” “I didn’t want her to ruin her dinner,” Monica tells him. Then he reminisces about Hope not wanting to take candy from a stranger (him) and how in that moment he made the choice that he had to have her. He tells Monica that she can walk out the door right now or she can go with him. He walks to the magazine stand and she rushes to the truck. He follows and off they go.
Cut to Garcia with Hotch in the briefing room. He explains the case to the rest of the team who has now joined. Hotch speaks about Hope’s abduction and tells them that they are now looking for her mother. Spencer interjects with a fact about how some unsubs reach out to family members of their abductees. Rossi asks how they think the abductions may be related. Morgan says that it was the anniversary of Hope’s abduction and that he found a letter. Rossi mentions that they cannot rule out suicide and Garcia insists Monica would never do that. Prentiss asks if Hope’s father is in the picture and Garcia says he died in a car accident right before Hope was born.
Reid announces that there is no postmark on the letter, meaning it was hand-delivered and Hotch asks him to do a full linguistics analysis on the letter to determine authenticity. He points out that there is a butterfly next to Hope’s name and thinks it means something. Morgan says there was no sign of a struggle. Prentiss asks what if the unsub approached Monica with Hope, and Rossi says that would get Monica to go willingly.
The kidnapper and Monica are now sitting outside of a house. Monica asks why he brought her there, and he tells her it’s so she can see where their life began. He tells Monica that he remembers Hope running around for hours like a young butterfly. A man approaches the truck. The kidnapper reminds Monica that they all have choices. She rolls the window down and the man says, “I thought that was you. Is everything alright?” She tells him that she was just driving by, and the kidnapper drives away.
Prentiss and Rossi pull up to a house. They discuss that it is rare for a parent of kidnap victims to leave the house the child lived in when he/she went missing. Rossi explains it was only because of resources. Monica rented an apartment close to the home. The lights are on timers and there is a key under the mat “in case Hope ever comes home”. They the idea back and forth that the abductor had access to Monica here, but he waited to abduct her in public, the same way that he took her daughter.
Reid tells Hotch that the letter found in Monica’s car shows no evidence of female writership and that it lacks emotional attachment. Hotch asks if the unsub wrote it, and Reid says he believes so because the language doesn’t match that of a 15-year old that has been held in captivity for the last seven years. (This is where I asked myself just what language would a 15-year old that has been held in captivity for the last seven years use?)
Garcia tells them she has a hit on someone resembling Monica in a gas station. Reid and Hotch go to Garcia to watch the video; Hotch notes that Hope is not with them, and Reid observes that they look like they are having a conversation. They watch a little longer and Reid points out that the unsub is shielding himself from the cameras and protecting his identity. They watch Monica leave and muse that the unsub has complete control over her. Reid comments that there are plenty of service stations between the gas station and the community centre, but the one they went to must mean something to the both of them. Hotch concludes that this is where it all began.
The unsub and Monica walk into a house. Monica tells him that she passes by this street everyday and can’t believe that he has had Hope here this whole time. Inside the house, Monica sees pictures of Hope and moves toward them. The unsub locks the door from the inside. Monica wants to see Hope, but the unsub stalls. “Come with me,” he says.
Over at the BAU offices, Morgan tells the team that the owner of Monica’s old house has reported seeing her. They ask if the unsub was with her? Yes, but the owner didn’t get a good description of him or the car. Apparently someone dropped a letter there for Monica a week ago and he called her to come pick it up. Ever since then she’s been parked outside the house. Reid thinks the unsub is giving Monica to Hope as a reward for good (fully compliant) behaviour, while Rossi feels the unsub is “getting off” on the fact he successfully abducted a mother and daughter.
JJ discloses some details about Monica’s statement after Hope’s abduction. Monica bought gas at the service station hours before Hope went missing, so it’s not a coincidence that the unsub took her there and to the old house. Hotch comments that the unsub is taking Monica through all the steps of the abduction, and Rossi still thinks that the unsub’s plan all along was to have both mother and daughter. JJ asks if they think the unsub is sexually diverse, as abductors usually want either a woman or a child but it’s very rare for them to go back and forth between the two. Rossi mentions that the unsub has stalked Monica – he knew about the key under the mat – so why did he wait seven years to abduct her? Spencer thinks the butterfly on the note was a sign of his maturation. He tells the team that maybe the unsub prefers women but in some situations, he would take a child. Hotch says that Monica is not a preference, but rather a specific target.
Now the unsub has locked Monica in a room.
Rossi says that the unsub went after HOPE’S mother, and Hotch fills us in … this probably means that Hope is dead and the unsub has taken Monica because she reminds him of Hope. The team looks around at one another – they seem stumped! Garcia comes in with a banker’s box and announces that this is all that the PD had on Hope’s abduction.
Monica is trying to get out of the room. The unsub opens the door and says, “Rise and shine.” Monica speeds out of the room after him. She sits in a chair that is bolted to the floor and has chains on the arms. She sees the name Hope carved into the table, traces the letters with her fingers, and begins to cry. The unsub enters the room and asks her how she slept. She replies that she didn’t. He points to the chains and tells Monica that Hope grew out of them when she was 12 and he didn’t use them on her much after that. He goes to the fridge and gives Monica the rundown on what he has to offer. Monica asks, “She’s not here, is she?” He rubs the back of his head which we can tell is a sign of annoyance, and asks why would he bring her to his home if Hope wasn’t there. Monica asks him to prove it … she wants to see Hope. He gets a video camera down and tells her to look. She sees Hope and begins to cry.
Morgan and Reid are pinning down where the unsub lives, and find that there are other cases that could be attributed to the unsub … one was six months before Hope’s abduction. A little girl thought a man was taking pictures of her. Three weeks later, she thought he was peeking in her window, and after that her house was burglarized. The only thing that was missing was her clothing. They deduce that this was the unsub’s lead-in to build his confidence to abduct Hope. Prentiss comes in with a letter that was found on the bike of the little girl who was playing with Hope the night she was abducted. Reid points out that there is a butterfly on it. Rossi reads a line from the letter: “Without you, she wouldn’t have been set free. This is a token of my appreciation.”
Now Monica and the unsub are heading upstairs. They enter a room, and Monica recognizes it from the video. “She was here,” she says. She cries and asks where he is hiding Hope. He tells her that Hope wrote to her so many times. He begins reading a letter. Monica gets up and attacks him, screaming for him to go to hell. He fights her off and explains to her that this is just her way of dealing with her guilt. He tells her that Hope was angry at first, too. He asks if Monica wants to know how he got Hope to calm down … he played games with her. He lets her go says he’ll give her a head start in a game of hide and seek. He begins to count.
JJ and Prentiss are now approaching a school bus. They speak to a girl named Heather. They explain to her that they need to speak to her about Hope. That they have reason to believe that the same man that took her took her mother last night. Prentiss tells Heather that she has already told police that she saw a man watching she and Hope play that day. Heather says she wishes she could help but has to get to class. She is visibly shaken. Prentiss tells her that the reason she has put streaks in her hair is because it is a constant reminder of how much she and Hope look alike. Heather begins to cry! Prentiss tells her that she knows that Heater constantly asks herself why he took Hope instead of you. JJ asks that if there is something that she knows that she tell them. Heather admits that it was not the first time she had seen him. She had seen him a week earlier in the park. He didn’t say anything to them. They move to the day that Hope was taken. She explains that they were playing Hide and go seek in front of Hope’s house. She had just finished counting and she turned around he was standing there smiling at her. He had a jar of butterflies. He asked if he could play with them she said yes. Why has she not told anyone? Because it was her fault she says. She is the one that told him that he could play with them.
Garcia is looking at pictures of Monica and Hope. She feels that the team is not doing enough to find them. Morgan tells her to stop and calm down just as JJ tells them they are ready for the profile. The BAU has concluded that:
- Seven years ago, they believed the unsub was a preferential child molester; now they believe his preference has evolved into an erotomanic obsession with Hope, so much so that in her absence, his attentions are now focused on Hope’s mother.
- When Hope went missing, there was another potential victim of the same age with the same physical characteristics as Hope, and she was even more accessible. This tells us that Hope became his idealized target.
- Despite the high risk, the unsub abducted Monica in public which shows she is pivotal to his fantasy.
- There’s a possibility that until recently, the unsub kept Hope alive, which explains why he didn’t hunt again for all these years.
- It was Hope’s death that triggered the change in his MO.
One of the other officers asks, “If the same guy has her, how long is she really going to last?” The team again exchanges those looks. Garcia stands up and tells them that she knows Monica and that she is a fighter. Garcia says that Monica will not give up, so neither should they.
Back at the unsub’s house, he continues the search for Monica , who is still hiding. He hears her running upstairs. She is going up another level and he shouts for her not to go in there. She opens a door and he appears behind her. There is a bed and Monica slowly walks toward it. There is an outline of a body under a sheet. She pulls the sheet back and there is the remains of a body. She falls to the ground and begins to cry. The unsub enters the room and says that he didn’t want her to find out like this, he is sorry and can explain. He tells her that he loved Hope, too. Monica cries. He tells her again that he loved her. He says that Monica could not know how long he searched. He was about to give up and then there Hope was. He knew from the moment he saw her that she would be a beautiful woman, like a cocooned butterfly waiting to emerge. Monica says that he had Hope chained like an animal. He tells her that she doesn’t understand what happened. It wasn’t his fault. Monica screams, “You murdered my baby!” and he shouts back, “She killed herself!”
Hotch, JJ and Morgan are discussing the day of the anniversary being the day that Monica is most vulnerable. The unsub would know this. He comes armed with info about Hope and she lets her guard down. She decides to go to the meeting where she can share her feelings with people who understand. JJ wants to know how the unsub knew that after this particular meeting she would be raw. What if he knew because he had heard the story before?
JJ wants to interview Garcia, and Garcia is worried about violating the privacy of the people in her support group. JJ promises she won’t ever speak of what she hears, and has Garcia remember what happened. We see Garcia back in the group hall, and JJ asks if Monica is there. Garcia answers yes, Monica is talking. JJ asks Garcia to look around the room and notice if anyone is reacting to Monica? Garcia says no, that everyone is listening. JJ wants to know what happened after Monica finished sharing? Garcia tells JJ that Monica was trying not to cry and someone started to say something but then Garcia ended the meeting. JJ needs to know who spoke. Garcia tells her that it was a guy who lost his wife. He was sitting behind Monica, and he rubbed Monica’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. JJ asks what happened at the end of the night. Garcia remembers watching that same guy take the tea bag out of Monica’s tea cup. (See, I told you it was important!) Garcia says, “It’s Bill!”
The unsub wants to explain to Monica what happened, but she doesn’t want to hear it. He goes on anyway. At night, he could always hear Hope walking around in her room. This one night she was pacing back and forth – and then she stopped. He came up to check on her and the door was locked. When he tried to open it, there was blood everywhere. He tried to stop the bleeding but t was too late. Wait a minute … Monica has heard this before. He told the story in group but said it was his wife. He was talking about Hope. He lost her. He tells Monica that she didn’t know his connection to Hope. Monica remembers that she cried for him, for his loss.
Back at the BAU, JJ tells Prentiss that a William Rogers joined the support group two months ago and Garcia is still looking for an address. He has a prior for an attempted kidnapping of a 14-year old. They realize that the reason he has held Hope all this time was because he was waiting for her to reach a more desirable age. He used the story that his pregnant wife committed suicide, and the team realizes that Hope could not bear the thought of bringing his child into the world and killed herself. Since that was not part of his plan, it turned his world upside down. Prentiss asks why he would want to take Monica and not just start all over again with another young girl. Rossi speculates it’s because Monica can give him what he lost … another Hope! He didn’t take Monica to remind him of Hope; he took her to recreate Hope.
Monica is now sitting in a bedroom. Bill comes in and says he wants to make peace with her. He reminds her that she shared with the group that she was thinking of having another baby. He tells her that all the things that she missed out on with Hope, she will get to experience with this new baby that they are going to create. She tries to run and he grabs her. We see in the mirror that he has her pinned to the bed.
Garcia has found Bill’s addresses and she is heading out with the team. We see Monica dressing and Bill comes in to tell her that he has made her favourite tea. He says that Hope would want them to move forward with their lives. Monica stands up and says, “Do you think so?” She throws the hot tea in his face and locks him in the room, which he breaks out of and chases her. Hotch and Prentiss break into one of the addresses. It’s clear. Garcia is on the phone with Bill. He puts Monica on the phone, and she tells Garcia that “she’s dead.” Bill hangs up on Garcia, but invites her into the house. She decides to go in, and JJ goes with her. Garcia sees Bill and Monica. He is holding Monica at gun point. Garcia speaks to him and tells him that Monica needs time to understand what he did. Garcia asks him to tell Monica why this is happening. He tells her that Hope was pregnant. Morgan and Reid come into the room. Bill puts the gun down and steps away from Monica. Monica picks up the gun and shoots Bill.
We are back in group with Garcia, who delivers this monologue: “We are each on our own journey. Each of us are on our very own adventure encountering all kinds of challenges and the choices we make on that adventure and the choices we make on that adventure will shape us as we go. Those choices will stretch us and test and push us to our limit and our adventure will make us stronger than we ever knew we could be.”
Cut to Monica releasing some butterflies, and one stays behind. She and Garcia cry a little. Then the butterfly leaves.
Garcia speaks again. “There’s a quote by my favorite author Joseph Campbell and it goes like this: Find a place inside where there’s joy and the joy will bring out the pain.”
This is the first episode since Season Three’s two-part story “Lucky” and “Penelope” that we have actually focused so much on Garcia. Last year with her split role on Suspect Behavior she was sort of in the background although she took over from JJ as the team liaison. I am glad to see her back in the spotlight. She is not only the glue that holds the team together but the comedy relief in most instances. She is a one-of-a-kind character (well, except for Abby on NCIS) and it’s nice to see someone who is a little goofy, a little off from the mainstream, be so happy and so comfortable with who she is.
Next week we have a break for American Thanksgiving. I wish all of my American friends a safe and happy holiday with their loved ones. Then we come back on December 7th, (HOLY MOLY it’s December in two weeks, I better get shopping) with Episode 9 called “The Self Fulfilling Prophecy” – where the BAU investigates the real reasons behind an apparent mass suicide of a small group of young men at a military academy. Meanwhile, Hotchner and Morgan are at odds with one other when a team member could be in jeopardy.
