In the opening scene of “There’s No Place Like Home”, we see a man sleeping behind the wheel of a camper. Thunder is crashing and lighting flashing and he is obviously having a nightmare. He cries out and wakes with a start, gets up, puts his boots on and looks out at the storm. He opens a locked box and pulls out a teenaged boy who is unconscious, bound and gagged. He drags the boy out into the storm and proceeds to take his own shirt off. The boy seems to be stirring awake and the no shirt guy looks up into the rain and shouts, “Beautiful ain’t it … an act of God himself! Just wait man.” Then he turns and runs to the trailer, picks up what looks like a crow-bar and returns to the boy, who is now crying. The music escalates; he lifts the crow-bar and brings it down …
Cut to JJ shutting Henry’s door and telling Will she finally got him down. Her phone beeps. The text says: “Hotch wants everyone in two missing kids found dead.” Will comments, “I thought you had a few days off?” He is obviously irritated. They argue – I guess JJ’s return to the BAU is not sitting well with her marriage. They agree that her job is hard on all of them. She tells him that she would stay home if there was someone to cover her shifts. He reminds her that she worked normal hours and had weekends off when she was at the Pentagon, and she reminds him she wasn’t helping anyone there. “What if it was Henry?” she asks. Will tells her she should go.
Now we are at the BAU offices. Rossi knocks on Hotch’s door and then enters. He is back because he gets antsy when he is gone too long. He thanks Hotch for the team’s donation to ALS, and tells Hotch he is OK. Rossi says he finds it funny that they were divorced 20 years and he never missed her as much as he does right now.
Garcia enters. She tells the team that bodies of two unidentified Caucasian boys were found near Wichita, Kansas (all I can think about is Glenn Campbell singing “Wichita Lineman” at this point). Prentiss adds that the boys, who were between the ages of 15 and 17, were each found mangled in the aftermath of a tornado. The ME (Medical Examiner) has determined that the COD (Cause of Death) was BFT (Blunt Force Trauma) before the storms hit. Morgan tells us that the death blow was almost in the same spot on each victim. JJ asks about the missing limbs. Prentiss responds that on vic(tim) number one, the right leg was taken off, and on vic #2 both arms were severed. Apparently the ME can’t determine if that was because of the tornado or the unsub. Rossi mentions that if the severed limbs are the work of the unsub, he has a hell of a sadistic streak and Morgan adds that the tornado would clear the area and allow the unsub the privacy to do his thing. Reid speculates that he may be using the storm as a position modality. Rossi suggests it might be a forensic countermeasure. Hotch is concerned by the brief period between kills. It’s only been a week between kills. The unsub is moving fast and the BAU needs to move even faster! Hotch asks Garcia to get him ID’s on all the victims. Hotch tells the team they leave in 30, and Garcia tells them to pack for foul weather.
Now the unsub is driving his camper and the radio buzzes: “The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning.” The unsub is excited. He shouts to the back of the camper that he found one and says, “You owe me $5 and you better pay up this time.” We watch him drive down the highway while the thunder crashes and lightning flashes … cut to intro.
OMG! A page and already and I’m only 5 minutes in. This is gonna be good!
The team is on the BAU jet. Hotch gives the opening quote: “When a man is sound of body and serene of mind, there is no such thing as bad weather. Every day has its beauty and storms which whip the blood do but make it pump more vigorously.” – George Gissing.
They discuss tornadoes until Garcia shows up on the screen and tells them that the local PD has ID’d their victims. The first one is Jason Merit, a 16-year old runaway. Next, Eric Janelle, a 15-year old foster kid who took off three weeks ago. Both kids have records for possession and prostitution. They muse about why the unsub may be keeping the body parts. Garcia leaves abruptly because her “machines don’t say gross things.” The plane shakes. Hotch holds tight to the arm of his chair, Spencer puts his seat belt on and Rossi crosses himself. Reid tells Rossi not to worry about turbulence but to worry about micro bursts – If one hits the plane at the right altitude it could BOOM pulverize. Rossi looks at JJ and begs her to make Reid stop!
In a newscast from the affected area, apparently the storm was an F2 on the Fujita scale. (This sent me looking for what the heck a Fujita scale is. Apparently it measures the intensity of a tornado based on the damage it causes to man-made structures. There are six levels: F0 having wind speeds of 54-116 km/h and a 10-50 meter width, considered light damage; F5 having wind speeds of 261-318 km/h and an 1100 meter width considered incredible damage. Right about now, I LOVE TORONTO! No hurricanes, few if any tornadoes, no tsunamis … just snow!)
Morgan thinks this guy gets off on chasing storms, and that a friend of his in college said it is the closest you can get to the true power of God. Prentiss tells us he is impulsive and young, a loner with nothing to lose. Morgan thinks they should be looking at actual storm chasers. Local PD tells them that storm chasers work with the university. Prentiss asks if Morgan thinks this guy is educated, and Morgan says well he knows enough about the weather…
We move to the police station where JJ is with a woman who is crying. This is the mother of one of the victims, Jason. JJ asks when the woman last saw her son, and she says it was the day he ran away, a little over a year ago. Jason had hugged his mom as he always did before he went to school. Hotch is speaking to a kid, whom we deduce is the other victim’s foster brother. The boy and Eric were ‘tight’. The last time he saw Eric was three weeks before when he said he was running to the store and never came back. JJ and Hotch confer on their findings. Each victim had a strong protective instinct and was looking out for someone besides themselves. Boys like that are hard to fool. JJ wonders if the unsub used to be one of “them”. Hotch then says there is a major system heading into the area that night, and the unsub is going to try to grab another boy soon!
We see the camper pull up to a tent site where five boys are sitting around listening to music. The unsub gets out, walks over asks them where he can get some beer. One boy tells him on Main, and the unsub asks where Main is. The boy says it’s four blocks that way, and the unsub asks if any of them wanna party – he’s got some weed. He approaches one of the smaller boys and an older one steps forward, and tells the unsub it’ll be $100. They bargain, and the boy leaves with the unsub.
Rossi is in the morgue with the ME, who is making conversation. He shows Rossi the bodies of the victims. It seems the vics were full of alcohol and Dextromethorphan – COUGH SYRUP! The ME says this is a quick high for street kids. The missing limbs were chopped off with a dull ax, and only minutes after death. They were tied up antemortem; the unsub held them before he killed them. It is inconclusive whether there was sexual assault or not.
So he:
- Gets them drunk and high
- Restrains them
- Kills them
- Chops off their limbs as souvenir
- Then dumps the body and lets the storm clean up the mess
Why the souvenir?
Back in the camper, the weather service is reporting another storm. The unsub is trying to get the boy into the box. The kid is a fighter. The unsub says, “Don’t worry boy, I’ll never forget you.” He opens a freezer and holds the hand of a body and says, “Double or nothing, I find us another one. What, you’re scared to lose again? Alright then, gentlemen’s bet. That’s my boy.” He is shaking the hand now.
Another body, same as the last, except this time, the torso is missing. The vic is Gary Dyson. However, there was no twister … thunderstorms and a warning, but no twister. He’s escalating, and it’s only been four days. The weather is making him do it. Reid tells us that the unsub is not a fetish killer because he is not taking the same parts. If we look at the missing pieces so far, it makes a body. Hotch realizes that the unsub is not taking bodies apart – he is making one!
The profile: a white male in his mid to late 20′s; he is mobile and travels great distances to follow the storms so he is either in a truck or a van; he may live in the vehicle and it’s probably beat up. JJ’s phone rings … she apologizes and hits ignore. Reid tells us that Jeffery Dahmer believed that if he created sex zombies they would not resist his advances. When his test subjects died, he kept their body parts as souvenirs. We are now flashing between the profile scene and a scene of the unsub putting ice in the freezer. Storing body parts is not easy – he is going to need lots of ice or salt to preserve them. He has to be paying for it and his gas too. He doesn’t have the social skills to hold a job for too long so he is most likely a day labourer. JJ then gets a text that reads “CALL ME ASAP 911”. JJ tells us that they think he is using the weather as a forensic countermeasure to destroy evidence. They think he may be some kind of symphorophiliac, which Prentiss describes as someone who is aroused by disaster. JJ excuses herself. The weather is arousing him and he hunts street kids, so he is most likely from a similar background and uneducated.
JJ is on the phone, and we see her ask, “Since when is a seizure fine?” Will is on the other end of the line, and tells her that Henry’s doctor says it’s normal for kids his age. They bicker back and forth, and she tells Will she is coming home. Hotch asks her what is wrong, and she explains. Reid rambles a bit to Hotch and then gets to his point – he knows where the unsub got his start. He explains that the only body parts the unsub has not taken are the left leg and the head. He asks Garcia to look for grave robberies in Tornado Alley in the last five years. No grave robberies or funeral home robberies fit the bill. Reid tells her to look specifically for thefts involving left legs. She gasps and tells him that he scares her, and finds that there was a left leg stolen a year ago but it was from a 47-year old father of two who died of leukemia. It doesn’t fit the unsub’s signature or his MO. He used this leg to develop his MO, but it doesn’t explain what or who he is building, and whatever it is he won’t stop until he finds the perfect head. As Garcia would say, Ewwww.
The unsub is at a roadside store getting more ice. He comes out and sees two boys standing in a phone booth. He has a moment. I think he has found his head. He tries to get the boys into his camper, but the older one won’t have any of it. The boys run down the street, and the camper pulls up along side them. Out comes the unsub and he asks how to get to the interstate. The older boy gives him directions, then we see the crow-bar.
JJ is one the phone, and learns she can’t get a flight home because of the weather. The rest of the team is off to the university to speak to storm chasers when they see a family with Hotch. There has been another abduction. The younger brother says a young white guy in an RV attacked him with a crow-bar in the rain. The unsub has changed his victim selection – this kid was a straight A student and football star who went to church. Also, the unsub left a witness, which means he is losing touch with reality. JJ, Morgan and Reid come to the conclusion that the unsub is trying to recreate someone he loved. Morgan tells us that love is an emotion that makes us go to extremes. Reid thinks it’s someone he loved and lost. “WAIT,” JJ says. “You said he was with his big brother, didn’t you?” she asks the little boy across the room.
Morgan calls Garcia. He needs to find out all teenage male vics of tornadoes in the last 10 years with younger brothers who survived. The survivor would have a criminal record. There are two, but 22-year old Travis James stands out. He has no home address or vehicle. Garcia sends a photo to them, and it matches the sketch of the description the kid gave.
We move back to the unsub, who is talking to his newest abduction. He is telling the kid to stop fighting that they are going to be brothers … just the two of them against the world.
Garcia tells the team that Travis lost his big brother Tucker and mother in a tornado in Oklahoma. Then the power goes out. Garcia tells them that just before the tornado touched down, Travis and five other boys testified against a man named Roscoe Gulch, who was a pedophile that lived in the same trailer park as Travis. Apparently Tucker had confronted him a number of times, protecting his little brother. Right after Gulch was acquitted, Tucker went to Gulch’s trailer. Travis said it was like his brother went crazy. Tucker heard sirens and looked out the window, then yelled for Travis to get out. Gulch got up and hit Tucker with a pot. Travis hid in a drainage pipe while Gulch and Tucker got stuck in the trailer and swallowed up by a tornado. When Travis came out there was nothing left. Garcia tells Hotch that Tucker was 22 when he died, and he was found in pieces. They talk about where Travis will take the boy he is holding. Reid says that it’s like Frankenstein – Travis isn’t just trying to put his brother back together, he is trying to bring him back from the dead. If tornadoes have the power to take lives they should also have the power to restore it.
Travis is trying to put the boy in the box. The boy struggles and hits Travis who picks up the crowbar and swings it, hitting the boy in the knee.
Garcia is speaking to Hotch as they zoom down the road in their SUV with sirens screaming. She has found the trigger. A year ago, a tornado ripped through a cemetery near Tulsa, and one of the graves that was disturbed was Tucker James. So Travis’ brother was killed by a tornado and then his memorial was destroyed by one, and Travis is using both to build a memorial of his own. Now that he has that boy’s head, his delusion will completely take over. Rossi tells Garcia to listen to the storm chasers so they know where the storms are.
Travis is talking to the boy as if it was Tucker. Reminiscing. He asks if the boy remembers. He looks at the boy’s neck, and the boy head butts Travis in the face. Travis grabs him and shows him the body in the freezer. Travis is listening to the weather again. He starts to “go”.
The team has no internet, and Garcia is going to guide them into the storm. There are two of the types of storms they are looking for, so they are splitting up. Cut to Travis smiling and drumming the steering wheel. Garcia tells them one of the storm chasers has told her he has seen the RV. Garcia guides them.
Travis has laid the boy out on the ground. He goes back in the RV to open the freezer. The boy is fighting with his restraints. Travis is carrying “the body” out. He goes and gets the ax, and tells the boy to stay still.
Morgan’s team gets to them in time. Morgan asks Travis to let the boy go. They tell him the boy’s name is Shawn and he has a little brother. They call him by name. “Travis, Tucker would not want this,” Reid says. They all look up. The tornado is close. Travis puts the weapon down and frees Shawn. He picks up the body. Morgan, JJ, Shawn and the local PD go into a storm shelter, but not before watching Travis and the body get sucked up into the storm.
JJ speaks the closing quote: “Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn so we see ourselves as we really are.” -Arthur Golden.
JJ is on the phone. She tells Will that the weather will break tomorrow and she should be home some time in the afternoon. She will call and let him know. Will asks if they at least caught the guy , and JJ tells him yes, sort of, it’s kind of weird. She had a really long day and she is really sorry about everything. Will is, too. Henry is still awake and said he won’t go to sleep until he gets story time. Will gives Henry the phone; JJ says hi, and tells him she is coming home tomorrow. She reads him a bedtime story over the phone. Henry says, “Goodnight Mommy,” and gentle music takes us to the credits.
Next week, we can look forward to “Hope” … the BAU investigates when a friend of Garcia goes missing in her survivors’ support group. Hmm … looks like they are giving each character an episode this year instead of focusing on one character the entire season. I haven’t decided if I like it this way.
Oh, I have been reading some spoiler sites, and I am not going to give you any spoilers here, but it looks like Reid’s story is supposed to get juicy and I cannot wait!
Be safe, and see you next week!
