The Fisher King, part two
Original airdate: 9/20/06

“The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind. “ - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

“It has been said time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time the mind protecting its sanity covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.” - Rose Kennedy

Elle has been shot by the unsub. Paramedics arrive and transport her to the hospital for immediate surgery. Hanging between life and death her conscious mind travels to the BAU jet where the pilot asks for her case file.

Gideon sends J.J. and Morgan to South Boston to talk to the family of the missing girl Rebecca Bryant and tells Reid to continue to work on figuring out which book they need to crack the code to their final clue. The messenger who had delivered the last clue to Hotch’s house has come forward and Gideon and Hotch interview him. He says he didn’t get a good look at the man who hired him to deliver the letter but he could tell that he was severely disfigured. Meanwhile Reid has been going over all the clues and gets an idea. He notices that the baseball card given to Gideon was from 1963 but knows the year Gideon followed Nellie Fox and the White Sox was 1959 leaving him to believe the book they need was published in 1963. He asks Garcia to do a search on the poem found in the music box and she tells him it is from a poem “The Parliament of Fowls” by Chaucer. Thinking to himself Reid puts all the clues together. The butterfly J.J. had received was indigenous to Great Britain and the last messages from the unsub had changed from modern English to medieval spelling. By changing the spelling of Fowls to Fowles he asks Garcia to search for any books published in 1963 in Great Britain by the author John Fowles. The search results in a book by the name of “The Collector.” The cover of the book shows a picture of a key, a lock of hair and a butterfly. Reid and Garcia tell Gideon and Hotch they’re almost certain they have found the book they will need when Gideon is told that there is an urgent phone call for him from a man calling himself the “Fisher King.” Reid tells them it may be the unsub calling because Sir Kneighf who hacked into the BAU computers is an anagram for Fisher King. With an accusing look at Garcia, Gideon answers the phone and the unsub tells him that if he had followed the rules there would have been no reason for him to kill agent Greenaway. Gideon and Hotch go immediately to the Hospital where they learn that Elle is in surgery but for now still alive. Reid finds a library which has the book they need and cracks the code to reveal a riddle which says: “The path to the end began at his start. To find her first calm her long broken heart. She sits in a window with secrets from her knight. Is it adventure that keeps him out of her sight?” Reid thinks the riddle is referring to his mother and fearing she is in danger calls the FBI office in Las Vegas and requests that his mother be brought to Quantico. Meanwhile as doctors frantically try to save her life, in Elle’s mind she is still on the plane. Her father who was a police officer that was killed in the line of duty has come to talk to her. He tells her what happens is up to her. Elle tells him growing up without him was very hard and she feels guilty because she was mad at him the day he left for work and was killed. She apologizes for having told him she hated him but her father says he understands that she was just a little girl who was angry when she said that but he knew she didn’t really mean it. Elle tells her father she misses him and maybe she wants to stay with him now. Morgan and J.J. finally arrive at the Bryant house and interview Rebecca’s parents. They find out that Rebecca was adopted when she was five after the rest of her family was killed in a fire. She had been in some trouble as a young teenager so when she didn’t show up at school the day she disappeared everyone assumed she had run away from home. Garcia does some research on Rebecca’s adoption and finds out her birth name was Rebecca Garner. She and her father Randall Garner were the only members of the family to survive the fire but her father gave her up for adoption when he needed to be hospitalized for severe burns and later spent time in a Las Vegas Sanitarium. Reid’s mother Diana Reid arrives in Virginia and Reid tells her that he thinks she may know the man they are looking for. He shows her a clip of the DVD and Mrs. Reid identifies the unsub as Randall Garner. The team gathers in the conference room to try to figure out where to find Garner when Mrs. Reid tells them a postcard had been delivered to her with an address on the back. The picture is of the brick house and the address is a short drive from FBI headquarters. Along with a SWAT team Hotch, Morgan and Reid go to the house. They find the unsub in a room upstairs with a bomb strapped to his chest. Reid tries to talk to him saying that he knows his mother. Garner believes that if Reid asks the right question all of his wounds will be healed. Reid tries to explain to him that a Fisher King wound is a wound of the mind and only he can heal himself by forgiving himself. Mr. Garner says he can not forgive himself and presses the trigger to the bomb as Reid realizing he is about to set off the bomb runs out of the room. With Mr. Garner dead and the house now on fire Hotch and Morgan grab Reid and tell him they need to get out of the house. Reid argues that Rebecca has got to be there and they need to find her. He thinks about the picture on the postcard that was sent to his mother and remembers seeing a light in the basement. They find Rebecca chained to the bed but Reid still has the key to the lock and they are able to save Rebecca. Elle finally at peace with her father tells him she loves him but she can’t stay with him. Her father replies he will be there for her when it’s time and tells her he loves her too. Elle opens her eyes to see a doctor standing over her hospital bed telling her she’s going to be alright.

P911
Original airdate: 9/27/06

“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children” - Deitrich Bonhoeffer

A young boy is being held in a small room. Mounted on the wall is a camera to videotape the boy. The boy holds a toy soldier up to the camera and says his name is Jack and he protects him. He then says to the camera he didn’t mean to make anyone mad and promises to be a good boy and asks if he can come out.

At the Crimes against Children Unit in College Park MD a team constantly monitors the internet trying to find exploited children and track offenders. One of the agents sees the boy’s picture and recognizes him. She notifies former BAU agent Katie Cole that “Peter” is back. Katie crosses the room and sees that the website displaying Peter has a clock counting down at the bottom of the screen and whoever is holding Peter captive is holding an auction and intends to sell Peter to the highest bidder. Determined she will not lose Peter again she asks her colleague to contact Aaron Hotchner at the BAU.

In the conference room in Quantico Hotch fills the team in on the case. The boy named Peter was first seen a year earlier on an internet site run by pedophiles. A massive search was conducted by the CCU (Crimes against Children Unit) led by agent Cole but the boy had disappeared. This time his image came from a chat room hosted by an independent web company originating out of Cleveland, OH which she hopes will give them a starting point.

It has been four months since Elle was shot and she comes to the BAU telling Hotch she is ready to get back to work. Hotch tells her she hasn’t been cleared yet to work in the field but agrees to let her go with Reid to the CCU while the rest of the team investigates the website company. Garcia tracks “HUGZ” the user who posted the image of Peter and finds a physical address and another website. J.J. immediately notifies Hotch that this site shows a teenage boy being held. A raid on the home finds the second boy, Kevin, alone in the house. He had set himself up on the website selling images of himself. When Gideon and Hotch tell him he has the chance to save Peter, Kevin tells them the video was sent to him from a client of his that goes by the name of “Mehtevas.” The team sets up a sting operation asking Kevin to contact Mehtevas and ask for a meeting. “Mehtevas” turns out to be the principal of an elementary school. Against Reid’s protests Elle and Reid meet the team at the school where Principal Rawlings is being interviewed. He claims he was trying to save Peter by sending the video to other boys he thought might know him. Reid points out to the rest of the team that “Mehtevas” is “save them” spelled backwards. Meanwhile Garcia notices Peter is wearing a “tadpole” shirt. (similar to a boy scout uniform) The badge has been removed from the sleeve but the unit number can faintly be seen where the patch had been sewn. By enhancing the image she and J.J. are able to track the number to a disbanded unit that had been in Mount Pleasant Virginia. The team goes to Mount Pleasant where they learn Peter’s name is Charlie Sparks. The team wonders why Charlie had been enrolled in school and allowed to participate in a social activity the year before but was pulled out suddenly and is now being held captive in a small room waiting to be sold. Gideon says he thinks the reason is fear and that the unsub who has Charlie changed his behavior because agent Cole almost caught him a year earlier. In the meantime the clock runs out and the website declares the auction is closed. Agent Cole has her files reviewed from the original investigation and gives the list of suspects they had interviewed to Garcia who is able to narrow the list down to two potential suspects who are still in the area. Agent Cole in confident she knows which of them is their unsub. They go to his address where the unsub has just loaded a trunk in his car and is pulling out of the driveway. They surround the car and arrest the driver and agent Cole rushes to open the trunk afraid of what she will find. Inside the trunk Charlie is alive and cries, asking for his daddy.

Back at FBI headquarters Charlie’s real parents have been located. Charlie had been abducted by the unsub when he was only a year old and now his mother has come to be reunited with her son after six years. Gideon warns her that Charlie will not know who she is and for her not to tell him she is his mother because it will only scare and confuse him. The mother says she understands it will be a long process and enters the room to see her son. The boy is still holding his toy soldier and tells the woman he meets his name is Jack and that he protects him.