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Criminal Minds S07E04 “Painless” review

Episode 04 – Painless

Heyo! So so far this is shaping up to be one of the most awesome seasons (excluding 2-5 XD) and this episode’s name is seriously freaking me out.

Really frightened of what’s going to happen.

Aww, Hotch is reading to Jack and he’s the best in the class, of course he is. Jackie boy.

“We just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night.”

“So he’s reading at a fourth-grade level.”

He’s holding back?

“Why do you think that is?”

“Paul Cain?”

“Yes, he’s been over. He’s a friend of Jack’s.”

Wait. So Jack’s bully is a friend of his and he invited him over? Something’s not right here.

“How long hast this been going on?”

“Well, Jack says that things are going very well at school, so the steps you’re taking must be working.”

“Let me know if anything changes.”

“Can I keep this?”

“Thank you so much.”

“Does anyone remember this picture?”

“Hotch and I were there.”

“That’s principal Doug Evans. We had to drag him to safety.”

“High school bombing in Boise, right?”

“School shooter and school bomber.”

“A kid named Randy Slade shot three students and set off an IED in the cafeteria via cell phone, killing himself and thirteen kids total, but not before posting all of his plans online.”

“Last night, Principal Givens was killed by a bomb modeled exactly like the old one.”

“It feels like the unsub wants to attack the man who kept the school together after the bombing.”

“It’s a pretty symbolic target.”

“And this week is the tenth anniversary of the massacre.”

“And today is the first day of a four-day event to commemorate the bombing at the school.”

“Except commemorating it isn’t enough for this unsub.”

“No. He wants to relieve it.”

Andy Partridge: “You may leave school, but it never leaves you.”

“Perpetrators of school violence are often sophisticated with their weapons. Randy Slade carried his bomb in his backpack.”

“This guy hid his in Givens’ clock radio.”

“Yeah, and progressive. Each one tries to top the body count of the one previous.”

“And they’re loners by default, not by choice. They try to join various social groups, but they get shut out.”

“Randy Slade wasn’t a loner at all. The family cooperated fully with us.”

“He was a high-functioning psychopath, straight-A student, varsity wrestler, lots of girlfriends.”

“With an above-average intelligence that made him incredibly resourceful. His explosive of choice was Semtex. It’s found at demolition sites, but it’s held under lock and key.”

“Which made us consider the possibility of a partner. Never found one.”

“Slade was too much of a narcissist to share credit.”

“But he was also an impulsive teen, which is what bothers me about this unsub.”

“His sense of control?”

“And the end game that he’s working toward. Slade’s pathology revolved around the big kill. This unsub could have done the same if he’d waited for the candlelight vigil.”

“Which means there’s no blaze of glory fantasy here.”

“This unsub has more bombs made, and he’s savoring the anticipation of his next attack.”

“Did you get the student files to our technical analyst?”

“Good. We’ll start with criminal records.”

“What’d you find, Garcia?”

“A blast from the past, I believe. Does the name Brandon Slade ring a bell?”

“Yeah, the bomber’s younger brother. Sweet kid. He couldn’t give us much back then.”

“Most seven-year-olds don’t. They do, however, grow up to become seniors who attend the same high school.”

“I thought the Slades were gonna leave Boise.”

They separated and the mom and kid stayed ... yikes.

“Did you question Brandon about last night?”

“We’ll need to talk to him.”

“So this unsub has to be tied to the school somehow, right?”

“Current student, alumni, family member who lost someone?”

“It could be Slade groupie celebrating his hero.”

“He taped nails to the exterior of the bomb, specifically to rip open flesh. That’s a sadistic detail of Slade’s the unsub copied.”

“Except he tricked Givens into blowing himself up.”

“A groupie probably wouldn’t show that much self-control.”

“But someone with an ax to grind against the principal would.”

“Maybe he’s a surrogate for the tormentors in high school he can’t punish.”

“Who were yours?”

“I don’t even remember.”

What?

“You don’t even remember?”

“Wait, were you one of the mean girls?”

“No.”

WHAT? NO WAY!

“Valedictorian, soccer scholarship, corn-fed, but still a size zero. I think that you might have been a mean girl.”

“I was actually one of the nice girls, even to guys like you.”

“Guys like me? I’ll have you know that my social standing increased once I started winning at basketball.”

“Oh, yeah, you played basketball?”

“I didn’t play. I coached basketball. I broke down the opposite team’s shooting strategy.”

“Is that why Morgan kicked you out of the pool last week?”

“Yeah. It took him three rounds to realize I was hustling him.”

“Huh.”

Okay, it’s official, Reid is my favorite. Who the fuck scams Morgan and gets away with it for so long? DAMN.

“Well, it looks like we’re not the only ones interested in Brandon.”

“It’s gonna make it a lot harder for us to talk our way in.”

“Unless we use it to our advantage.”

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.”

“My name is SSA David Rossi of the FBI. That’s R-O-S-S-I.”

“So if anyone has any questions, you’re free to ask them now.”

Well that was certainly a distraction of the press.

“Mrs. Slade? I’m Special Agent Emily Prentiss with the FBI. This is …”

“Martha, we can do that. We’ll just have to come back later.”

I, too, don’t believe that her son did it. But ...

“Let us prove that for you.”

“Once we rule him out, we can get these people off your lawn.”

“Martha, you can observe. You can stop us and call your lawyer whenever you want.”

“Agent Rossi was always very nice to Brandon. Let him do it.”

Of course Rossi is the cutest thing ever and leaves a good impression.

“Dave.”

“All right, feel free to call me if you have any other background questions. My phone number is …”

“It’s Dr. Spencer Reid. R-E-I-D.”

What the ... oh my god, it’s Morgan payback. I am starting to like this episode. Oh boy.

“You know, there’s a sniper right be … oh!”

“Never mind.”

I love that Rossi is into video games.

“Oh, a while back. After this kid told me how much he loved playing with his big brother.”

“First edition. I’m touched.”

I’m impressed. And apparently, the kid is also a good writer. Damn.

“So are you.”

“I read one of your AP English essays. The Futility of Jay Gatsby and the Green Light.”

Whoa.

“Well, I was curious as to, uh, what kind of kid you grew up to be.”

“But that didn’t stop you from getting beaten up on a regular basis.”

Hee hee, that kid is seriously my fave here. ‘You bang your fans, mine beat me up.’ He’s sharp as fuck.

“And uh, Principal Givens, he couldn’t stop that, could he?”

“That must have really ticked you off.”

“Well, just because you downloaded them doesn’t mean you sat here and watched them.”

Ooh, someone’s been taking lessons from Garcia.

Rossi was much cooler ten years ago?

“So were you.”

Oh snap.

“When did Harry leave?”

“Is that why Brandon ended up in North Valley?”

“Just want to see if you took after your big brother.”

“Actually, dude, I don’t think you’re mean enough to have done it.”

“But tell me the truth. You’re happy that Principal Givens is dead, aren’t you?”

“Well, Randy wanted the whole school dead.”

“Whoa. Am I missing something here, Brandon?”

“Well, did Randy have some sort of agenda? Did he target specific people inside of the school?”

“We didn’t. We couldn’t find any logic to his actions.”

“So how do you know, huh? Did he tell you?

“Did a seventeen-year-old confide in a seven-year-old?”

“Did you find something?’

“He had a list, didn’t he?”

“If he still has the list, it’s somewhere in that room.”

“Martha, do you know anything about this?”

“I can have a search warrant in an hour.”

“Tear it apart.”

Whoa.

“Yeah, bookshelf is clean.”

“I love dating readers, hate profiling them.”

“Catcher in the Rye, Atlas Shrugged.”

“These are all titles that a teenage kid would obsess over, but Randy made that list when Brandon was just a kid.”

“You’re right. So, however Brandon got his hands on that list, he would have hid it in something a seven-year-old would read.”

“Hotch! We found it.”

“Principal Givens is on this list.”

“You’re on speaker, JJ.”

“So we might have another one.”

“Might?”

“One of the North Valley alumni was killed in her motel room. No bomb or gun this time. Looks like he used his bared hands.”

“You got a name?”

“Chelsea Grant.”

“She’s on the list.”

Shit.

“The unsub crushed Chelsea’s throat so she couldn’t scream, then he pulverized her ribs, sending fragments of bone into her heart.”

“Principal Givens was high-profile. Chelsea wasn’t.”

“Right now the only thing connecting them is they’re both on the kill list.”

“A kill list Brandon kept secret for ten years.”

“But he was in custody when this happened.”

“The question is, how did the unsub get the exact same list?”

“We ruled out a partner, but not exclusively. Slade made every part of his plan public.”

“It doesn’t make sense that he would hide a partner. He didn’t want to share the credit.”

Well, I really don’t like where this is headed.

“And this weekend is the partner’s best chance to claim it.”

“Partners of dominant psychopaths are usually submissive, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be intelligent or that they’re physically weak.”

“The unsub laid low after the bombing and successfully evaded police and FBI. That took cunning and patience, which he’s exhibiting now with his current murders.”

“We think he fits the loner profile Slade debunked. He grew up in an abusive home, which kept him from forming the normal social bonds in high school.”

“Even outcasts eventually form friendships. But this unsub was the outcast the outcasts rejected.”

“He won’t stand out in any capacity, and as a matter of fact, most of his fellow students probably won’t even remember graduating with him.”

“And that invisibility is what made him attractive to Slade.”

“This partner wouldn’t steal the spotlight.”

“Slade turned to the cafeteria because of the names on his list ate there together during fifth period.”

I love the way he points with his pinky.

“So his hatred festered when the names on the list emerged from the cafeteria as media heroes.”

“And now he wants to finish the job that Randy started.”

“Emotionally, this weekend is more a high school reunion to him than a memorial.”

“We go to reunions to show who we grew up to be. Often that means changing everything about who we are.”

“Consciously or not, Randy Slade revealed clues as to his partner’s identity when he detonated his bomb.”

“Agent Prentiss will be conducting cognitive interviews to see what the survivors might remember.”

I’m with those skeptics. I mean, they survived a traumatic experience, and now they want them to relive it? No dice.

“Yes, but there may be some details that you didn’t think were important at the time that could help us now, things that could help us learn about the partner.”

“The interviews we’re going to conduct won’t focus on what you saw, but what you felt.”

“The Boise police have offered everyone on this list a protective detail.”

“So as you can see from your board there, this kill list is weirdly similar to high school. Group one is like the popular kids – prom court, football team, Dean’s list .the Heathers, if you will.”

“Kid’s in Slade’s social circle.”

“What about number two?”

“That would be the kids from the other side of the tracks, 180-degree difference, kids this close to getting kicked out – stoners, burnouts, mental cases.”

“Chelsea Grant is on this list.”

“Maybe Slade targeted them because they disgusted him?”

“But they didn’t threaten Slade’s sense of superiority. He wouldn’t have even cared about them.”

“All right, well, maybe the partner put them on the list. They’d be closer to his social status than Slade’s.”

“Why would the …”

“I’m so sorry.”

Oh my God, it’s working.

“Why would the unsub list kids that he fit in with?”

“Apparently that’s how this clique worked.”

“The kids in it were meaner to each other than kids on the outside.”

“Garcia, separate out all the kids who got into trouble regularly. Then eliminate the names that the partner put on the list. Now, who’s left that came to the memorial?’

“Right. Whoever made the list wouldn’t put their name on it.”

“Uh … Sir, I think … I think I’ve got him.”

“Lewis Ramsey. FBI.”

“Put the drink down. You’re coming with us.”

“Did you hear the conversation?”

“What did you notice?”

“That was when he ordered you to lock the doors, right?”

“What did he say?”

“Why did he detonate so early?”

“Now, let’s go back for a second.”

“Randy was pointing the gun at you. Did you see the cell phone in his hand?”

“What was on it?”

“The black cell phone?”

“Are you sure? The grey cell phone was the detonator.”

“The black cell was the one he’d talked to his mother on.”

“Then how do you explain your fingerprints in her room?”

“You’re very convincing, Lewis. But you were convincing ten years ago, too.”

“Oh, yeah. You were blowing up in the back parking lot, right?”

Oh dear, sarcastic, judgy Morgan is seriously the hottest fucking thing.

“Yeah, of course it was.”

“It also allowed you to pose as a loser. The very type you wanted to kill.”

“You know how we know? You wrote it down.”

“‘All the losers in this godforsaken school’.”

“But you did type up the rest of the list.”

“Lewis, we know how guys like Randy make friends.”

“They build up rapport through secrecy.”

“Only the two of you are smart enough to see through the BS of high school, right?”

“And it felt so good doing whatever Randy said and not have to tell anybody about it.”

“Make me a list of kids we should kill.”

“Sure, Randy.”

“Get me a pound of Semtex from your dad’s construction site.”

“Whatever you say, Randy.”

Ugh.

Oh what, he thought he wouldn’t use him? God, this dude is stupid as fuck.

“He would use you?”

“You were mad that he actually did it.”

“But you were also mad that he left you behind.”

“Then why come back?”

“What does a loser like you have to gain by seeing all the kids that he hated so much?”

Oh shit. Morgan talking down on potential unsubs shouldn’t be getting me all hot and bothered like this.

“You buy it?”

“He fits the profile, and the evidence points to him, but he seems sincere. He’s not the unsub.”

“He was the partner, but look at how Slade added ‘all the LoSeRs in this Godforsaken school’.”

“This capitalization isn’t an accident. Look.”

“L-S-R … Lewis Stuart Ramsey.”

“So Slade named his own partner.”

“Ironically, Lewis’s marijuana conviction saved his life.”

Thank you for using ‘ironically’ correctly.

“Well, that puts us back to our original problem.”

“If the unsub isn’t the partner, how did he get his hands on a list that Slade and Lewis kept to themselves?”

“The only answer is that part of the profile is wrong. The unsub’s vendetta has nothing to do with the list.”

“Did you get anything from Jerry Holtz?”

“Only that he mixed up the cell phones that Slade used. It felt like he was making the story up, but I only had a hunch.”

Important lesson: Always trust your gut instinct, Emily.

“We need to find him now.”

“There’s a connection to the victimology that we’re missing.”

“Whatever he’s holding back might be the key.”

Oh shit, the guy Emily interviewed just got stabby-stab-stabbed like shit. Fuck.

“Jerry Holtz?”

“How long?”

“Less than an hour.”

“The only people who knew we were doing cognitive interviews were the other survivors.’

“The unsub must be a part of that group,”

“Well, we don’t know that for a fact. He could have been lying in wait. Look, Hotch wants me to go through the victims’ lives and find the overlap. We can compare their histories with the unsub’s.”

“Well, what else do we have to go on?”

“Spence said the unsub would have broken his hand beating Chelsea to death. Did you notice anyone with a cast on their hand, someone who seemed hurt?”

“No.”

“I might know why. This unsub doesn’t feel pain.”

Of course he does.

“There’s a medical condition called pain asymbolia, where patients register harmful stimuli without being bothered by it.”

“They’ve been documented holding their hand over an open flame because their brain doesn’t send pain signals to the central nervous system.”

Oh shit, so this fucker can’t even register pain? Damn, that is fucked up.

“Sounds pretty rare.”

“You sure the unsub has it?”

“The crime scenes prove it.”

“This unsub displayed an unusual level of savagery towards his victims.”

“And consider this – he smashed through a glass display case, but there were no cuts on Jerry. That means he most likely punched through it as a show of force.”

“Now, the only way the human body could withstand that level of pain is if he couldn’t feel it at all.”

When Reid realizes something is up ...

“It must have taken a major toll on someone’s emotional development.”

“A significant contributor to our sense of empathy is the way we personally experience pain.”

“And the unsub didn’t develop his sense of empathy because it was cut off.”

“Does every person with asymbolia have this?”

“Actually, most feel empathy just fine, which makes me think the rest of our profile is still accurate.”

“Loner, invisible, outcast, boiling rage ….”

“Son of a bitch!”

WHAT?!

“Hi! This is Dr. Spencer Reid. I actually can come to the phone right now with a very special message that your mother is …”

“Reid.”

“Sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“I don’t know where that came from.”

“Where were we?”

“I’m going to have Garcia check medical records. What causes asymbolia?”

When Reid suddenly realized that Morgan got him back ...

“Severe trauma produces lesions in the insular cortex, usually after a stroke.”

“But this unsub’s young, it’s most likely caused by an external factor.”

“Like a bomb going off next to him?”

“Yeah, a bomb going off next to him.”

“I will crush you.”

“What?”

Ooh, my puppy is gonna get it this time.

Okay.

I just ....

Hands down one of hte best scenes in the entire seven seasons so far.

HOLY SHIT.

“It’s so weird seeing yearbooks again.”

She’s so cute! I love JJ so much.

“A friend of mine who teaches said that Facebook is making them obsolete.”

I’m in total agreement. Facebook is making life obsolete, but ... different discussion for a different time.

“I’m having serious flashbacks going through these senior bios.”

“Four years of accomplishments boiled down to one paragraph.”

“Hey, did your school have anything called Top 10?”

“No. Is it an academic thing?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Only ten of the survivors listed it, including Jerry and Chelsea, and neither of them were valedictorian material.’

“Okay, so … what are we looking at here?”

“Well, maybe it’s a clique inside a clique.”

“Yeah, but it’s jocks, nerds, theater geeks. Nothing that would bring these kids together.”

“Except …”

“What?”

“I know what the Top 10 is.”

“Recognize the Top 10?”

“No.”

“They were the students that went in front of the cameras after the bombing.”

“I thought all the surviving students were interviewed.”

“After the initial aftermath, yes, but these are the kids that went on talk shows, traveled to other schools.”

Wait. So the list comprises of those ‘elite’ that have gone on talk shows and talked to schools about the tragedy? Oh boy ... I have a bad feeling about this.

“My guess is that they didn’t self-select who made the cut.”

“Principal Givens did.”

“That’s why the unsub killed him first.”

“He was an outcast who wanted to fit in.”

“Being a survivor should have been his golden ticket. But he was excluded again, and that’s why he’s killing them.”

“Yeah. The rules of high school never changed, not even after a tragedy.”

“Go ahead, Garcia.”

“Hey, listen up. I cross-referenced students files with medical records.”

“Now, there were six kids that were knocked unconscious in that blast, but only one fits the outcast profile.”

“His name is Robert Adams, and he just used his credit card at a local restaurant, the address of which …”

“I just sent you right now.”

“I’m on my way.”

Oh shit. That fucktard who can’t feel anything just took the top eight hostage in a fucking restaurant ... oh damn.

“He’s nowhere near the window, so there’s no line of sight.”

“We profiled this would be like a reunion to him.”

“He wants people to recognize who he is.”

“I think I know what he wants to be recognized for.”

“Robert Adams, we’re with the FBI. We just want to talk to you.”

“We know why you’re doing this, Bob.”

“Bob, you’ll be in the news for a couple of days. But no one will know the real story.”

“Tiffany … what did Randy say to the kid who looked him in the eye?”

“But he didn’t say it to Jerry, did he, Bob?”

Wait, so this whole thing started because they stole his thunder and told his story? Oh boy. This is fucked up in the head.

“Did he, Bob?”

“We can give you back your story, but you have to drop the gun.”

“Drop the gun.”

“Bob.”

“Morgan, he’s heading to the south entrance.”

“Copy. I got the back covered.”

Awesome.

“FBI. Drop the weapon, Bob.”

“Hotch!”

“Prentiss, in here!”

“We need medical in the boiler room.”

“Hold your fire.”

Damn. Hotch is one badass motherfucker.

Khalil Gibran: “Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

My gorgeous honey enjoying his music

Until ...

“We interrupt your regularly scheduled musical selection with an important announcement.”

“Never wage a practical joke war against an MIT graduate, because we have a history of going nuclear.”

Who hacked into his playlist?

“Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the dulcet sounds of me screaming in your ear.”

Screaming.

“Okay, kid, that was cute.”

“But that’s all you got?”

Snoring.

“Hey, baby gi…”

Screaming.

I am so in love with this show.

Oh my God, Rossi giving him the white towel of surrender. AWESOME!

“Uh-uh.”

“All right, Reid, it’s on.”

“Just know that paybacks are a bitch.”

Snoring.

Oh my fucking god, just when I thought this show couldn’t get any better. This is seirously the best episode ever.

“Hey.”

“How’s Jack?”

“There’s a kid that’s being mean to him at school, and Jack’s solution is to invite him over and make friends with him.”

“That is the sweetest and saddest thing I’ve heard.”

“How did you find out?”

“His teacher told me.”

“He wants to solve it himself.”

I love Jack Hotchner so much. He is possibly the best human being ever ... on television.

“There’s probably a part of you that wishes you could step in.”

“Well, there’s a part of me that wants to protect him from everything that could hurt him, but I know I can’t.”

“No. But you can show him that he doesn’t have to face it alone.”

“How did you get by in Paris?”

“Um, I, um … I played a lot of online scrabble.”

“With some girl named Cheeto Breath.”

I am so in love with this kid.

“We haven’t talked to mom in a while, so I thought it would be a good idea if we did it again.”

“Buddy, you’re not making me sad.”

“It makes me happy, because it reminds me what a great job mom did with you.”

“So maybe if we got in the habit of doing this again, you know, mom could help us.”

“You know, if you have a bad day.”

“Mrs. McKee said Paul’s been mean to you.”

“No?”

“Okay.”

“Well, mom, look out for Jack anyway.”

“Oh, dad, too. Of course.”

“Good job.”

“Okay. Time to settle down.”

“Good night, buddy.”

“I love you, too.”

Best daddy award to Hotchner.

And best son award to Jack, because that kid is the fucking best!

So despite the horrific part of this episode - oh my fucking god how the fuck are those people managing to make me giggle during a serious show????

The Morgan/Reid prank war.

The knowledge that JJ is addicted to Cheetos and plays scrabble.

And Jack Hotchner always brings a huge smile to this face.

Again, thank you so much for keeping up with me and my crazy notions.

See y’all next time!

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