Criminal Minds – Snakes Eyes
(Series 7 – Episode 13)
The episode started full of action showing the unsub’s first kill, the unsub was no other then Dean Cain more famously known as Superman and it was nice to se him take on a different role; the bad guy instead of the hero. He then leaves the hotel room and enters the casino, keeping an eye on the security guard. Panicking he shoves a dollar into a machine and wins the jackpot drawing attention to himself, it made me wonder how he managed to get away with not being caught with blood on his hands.
Garcia is woken up by JJ ringing her up on a Sunday morning to come down to the office, clearly she has had too much to drink the night before, having one too many bottles of wine after a fight with Kevin. She ends the conversation by hanging up the phone as she hears Kevin in the shower; she needs to make up with him before heading to the office. As she stumbles through her room she is distracted by a knock at the door and there Kevin is stood with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers looking apologetic, Garcia is in a state of shock, if Kevin stormed out and was now at the front door but is in the shower. Enter my favourite scene of the series Agent Derek Morgan fresh out of the shower in nothing but a towel. OMG! I nearly died and I’m sure he set a lot of your pulses racing too. Garcia rushes out flustered wondering if she overstepped her friendship boundaries with Derek. Once at the FBI headquarters the team are overlooking a case, Garcia rushes in and speaks to JJ dismissive of Derek who looks confused as he doesn’t know what her problem is.
It then shows the unsub on a winning streak and even catching the eye of a beautiful woman, life couldn’t be any better for him now. He even wants to win enough money to get in to this exclusive poker game that costs $50.000 to play, serious gambling.
Prentiss and Reid are at the first crime scene and know the unsub must have snuck in straight after Danny Solveno as the hotel door had an electric strike lock which are extremely difficult to break in to. When questioned about the security tape the guy tells them that the disc was swiped and Danny had refused the standard hotel security so what was he hiding?
During this time Rossi and JJ have made contact with a local thug that they are aware have helped the FBI out with their investigations before at first he says he has retired so they are on their own but when they mention that Danny Solveno is dead and they just want him to come out of retirement long enough to get some information on Danny he agrees, after all he is dead.
Things are going really well for are unsub he’s won more money so what could possibly go wrong, his wife turning up. Angry at the fact that he has started gambling again and fed up of his excuses she announces that she wants a divorce and she will be staying with her sister. She also wants him to stay away from her after scaring her when he grabbed her arm in anger.
The team have found out that Danny Solveno had supplemented money and loaned the money to casino patrons, this is why he didn’t have the hotels standard security, he didn’t want his bosses to find out he was freelancing.
Our unsub is now on a losing streak since his confrontation with this wife and follows the woman who came over to him the night before in to a secluded car park, he tries to convince her that his losing streak is over which the woman says ‘we both turned up empty tonight’ confirming to us that she is an escort. The escort is dismissive to ithe unsub’s advances and laughs at his dream so he angrily slams her head and kills her.
The team are at the crime scene with the murdered escort and Derek says that she couldn’t have been afraid of the killer as she had had her fag lit but yet he couldn’t find any matches or a lighter around.
We then see the unsub trying his luck at the casino table with his friend who is telling him that his wife was never any good for him she always held him back and he always lost whenever he has had an argument with her. He then says its weird that the Circle of Eight killer has killed to people that he knows before showing him a picture of a really expensive watch that he carries around with him because when he wins big that is the first thing he will buy with his winnings. During this conversation the unsub is aimlessly placing bets and ends up winning, has killing the escort giving him his winning streak back?
The team have worked out that the number 8 is a ritual aspect in the unsubs killings and high form of obsessive compulsive disorder and while they are working out this the unsub has gone and bought himself a handheld gun, who is his next victim going to be? It turns out to be a random killing of a cashier who is working in a garage after all he just needs to kill someone to keep his winning streak up right? However this time is doesn’t work that way as he watches his money vanish after each bet looks like he needs to find another person to kill. On a mission he begins to walk out of the casino but then stops when he sees the watch his friend was on about. We then see the pair of them walking down an alley when the unsub gives him the friends the watch just before shooting him from behind.
The team are at the third crimes scene the number 8 is still a fixture in the killing although the unsub has been more generous by leaving $88 around the body and not robbing anything. Prentiss makes an assumption that the unsub may have known the victim as he was shot from behind, unlike any of the other victims, he didn’t want to be seen as a killer. It is then that they get a call about another killing of a guest in a room and he has stolen $50.000 but has left $20.000 with the body. Using the power of Garcia and computer geniusy they find out about the major poker tournament.
Back at the headquarters Hotch tells the team that the FBI wont give them the emergency fund which Rossi can understand, who would give the FBI $50.000 to play poker. It is now that Prentiss suggests that he could loan them the money, after all he is a best selling author. Rossi isn’t keen on the idea as he prefers to spend his money on the finer things in life like cigars, fine wine and art not on a game. I love the banter between Rossi and Reid when trying to convince Rossi he says ‘at your age it would be nice to try something different’ to which he replies ‘at my what?’ Rossi finally agrees to put the money up but isn’t confident that he would be able to stay in the game long enough to figure out who the unsub is however Reid would. Rossi then goes on a rant which is one of the rants I love saying that poker wasn’t about mathematics and he wasn’t go to trust someone else with his money, during his rant Reid is proving that poker does have a mathematical element to it. You just got to love Reid.
Reid is then undercover at the poker game and asks to swap table as the lighting is know good for his glaucoma, he has spotted the circle of 8 killer and all because he has a keyring with a number eight ball on.
We then get to see more of the Garcia and Morgan drama, when he is on the phone and she has given him some information in record time Derek says that ‘you have always been fast baby girl’ to which Garcia replies she has to go leaving Derek wondering what the hell is going on with her.
Back at the poker game Reid is trying to rile the unsub he then reaches for the keyring to which the unsub freaks out and when the security guard comes over accuses Reid of trying to steal his chips. As the security guard escorts Reid out the unsub makes a run for it.
With the unsub managing to get away from the team, Garcia helps them by sharing that his name is Curtis Banks and his father was a severe gambler and the victim they found in the alley earlier that day was his best friend. It is then the Rossi works out that he is going for someone he is really close to, the only one of the victims he didn’t have a personal connection with was the garage cashier and he needs to kill someone he is close to for his system to work.
Curtis has found his wife at her sisters house and is holding them at gun point all he wanted was to make his wife happy and she decided to leave him, she says that they could start again, make a fresh start but Curtis sees straight through her.
Rossi is the one that decides to go into the house unarmed and explains that he understands him and that he didn’t mean to kill these people he just accidentally stumbled into it and doesn’t know how to stop it. Curtis decides to let the sister go but is keeping a tight grasp on his wife, she never had faith in him. JJ is trying to get and angle on Curtis as he makes his way in to the room, she asks Rossi why he keeps looking to the left of him, the only thing that is there is the clock and it is almost eight o’clock another connection to the number eight and that is the reason Curtis asked for more time. The team make a move knowing that when the clock strikes eight all of this is going to end. Curtis decides to let his wife go and then shoots himself as the clock strikes eight.
When the team are back at Quantico
I loved that they made Garcia question her friendsip boundaries with Morgan as when people are as close as those two why wouldn’t anything happen? But more importantly I am glad they didn’t allow anything more to happen between the two of them. Their relationship is perfect just the way it is.
All we need now is for the return of the girl Hotch met on the bike ride and I will be a happy girl and maybe some more shower scenes from Morgan J
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