Criminal Minds - Heathridge Manor

Criminal Minds – Heathridge Manor

(Series 7 – Episode 19)

Well here we finally are, the long wait is finally over, Matthew Grey Gubler’s third directed episode was aired on Friday night. The episode started back in 1996 and showed a woman reading a story to her son before being taken away to a psychic hospital. She tells her son to make sure he looks after his sister.

Present day it shows two teenagers sneaking in to an abandoned psych hospital only for them to find the dead body of a woman. The woman was dressed in renaissance clothing and bound, when the team look at the case Reid says that limestone was found under her fingernails so the unsub killed her in a secondary location.

We then see another woman who is crying for help in a well type dungeon and buckets of water are being poured on her every few seconds filling the well up.

This episode also starred the famous Robert Englund more famously known as Freddy Krueger playing the lead detective which was quite weird to watch him playing one of the good guys. At the crime scene Rossi notices that the bed has been dragged into the centre of the room, the bed is heavy to move so it must have had some importance to the unsub.

Back at Heathridge Manor we see the boy talking to his mother and she is telling him that he is the chosen defender and he must be vigilant to destroy them before they destroy the family. The boys name is James and his sister is called Lara who wants to go back to school but James is adamant that it is safer for her hear as at school she will get teased. Lara is confused as she has friends and she tells him that maybe their mother is wrong and he doesn’t have to find the wives.

The team have been trying to track down the dresses but they are told that that line is no longer in production. Prentiss notice some numbers wrote on the hospital wall along with the graffiti and next to one of the numbers has the victim’s name which tells them that there are more victims to come.

We then see James pull out the woman who he left drowning in the well and both he a Lara watch as the woman begins to cough up water and James declares that she is one of them. We then see James sewing her into another medieval type dress. In the meantime Reid has worked out that the numbers in front of the victims names are all dates from the satanic calendar of sacrifice.

Lara has a visitor – a friend from school that James rudely kicks out. Lara stresses that she wants to go to the prom with her friends but James says that she will only bring on unnecessary danger.

Rossi and Prentiss check out the play costumes through a theatre that is across the road from the latest crime scene and find out that the costumes were stolen and they are from the play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’

We then see James speaking to his mother again who says that Lara is at a very vulnerable age and he needs to be careful as the devil will take notice of that.

Reid works out that the unsub is trying to the devil, not worship him; this is because of the white make up he puts on the women after their death showing their purity. Garcia also finds out that an actress donated the dresses to the theatre sixteen years ago and was a patient at the psych hospital and was believe to be the one who started the fire.

At Heathridge Manor, James has created Lara her very own prom and tells her that he has the final wife. Lara is happy about this because it means that it is over and she can go back to school. We now see that Lara has a fake arm although we are yet to find out the reason behind this. When they go to check on the final wife the woman does not wake up which means she was innocent, Lara gets upset and tells James she wants to ring the police which makes him angry and he says he will get the final wife but Lara tells him that this will never end.

Prentiss and JJ find a woman with the surname Heathridge at the place where the old psyche files have been kept; this woman was a textile heiress and came off her anti psych medication whilst she was pregnant. During this time she had a small part in the play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ in which she ended up killing one of the actresses as she thought she was the devil bride. She also chopped off her baby daughters arm to make her less appealing to the devil. Reid suggests that the Heathridge children are carrying out their mothers delusions whilst Garcia finds the team the address.

James wakes up Lara and dresses her up in an Elizabethan dress and ties her up and tells her that when the devil comes for her he will kill it so that she can live. He then passionately kisses Lara which gave me the creeps as they are brother and sister.

As the BAU search the manor we see Lara having difficulty breathing and Morgan finds a mausoleum with a dead woman inside who he assumes is James’s first victim. Prentiss finds Lara and struggles as she tries to get the dress that has been sewn on undone. Hotch has gone down to the dungeon where James starts a fight with him, James has the unfair advantage of using a fire poke as a weapon. Hotch however gives it all back and James ends up falling down the well type dungeon.

Lara seems to be fine even though her brother is dead but the team however still worry about her. The manor seems to breed illusions, how long before Lara starts acting on hers? We then see Lara answer the door where a man tells her that he has been waiting for her for a long time and that she must go with him now. However it then shows us the viewers that no one is actually there, it looks like the manor has claimed another victim.

I loved this week’s episode especially as it had Salem’s witch trial theme to it. I also thought that Matthew did an excellent job in directing this episode and I will look forward to another episode being directed by the Gubler again.

Criminal Minds - Foundation

Criminal Minds – Foundation

(Series 7 – Episode 18)

This episode opens with a man driving his family home and nearly falling asleep as the wheel, we see the man get out getting some fresh air and joke around with his wife and son. This screams unsub attack but in a nice twist as the man starts the engine and the headlights come on they see a young beaten boy.

We then see Morgan and JJ visit the young boy at the hospital, he is being kept in a dim room away from much noise dues to his sever circumstances. When Morgan sees the child who has cramped himself under a table and refusing to communicate he tells JJ that this boy has been in captivity for years.

Before the team got to the station they were sent some video footage of a woman named Sam Allen who came to tell the police that she remembers seeing a boy about thirty years ago just in chains just like the boy they have just found. However when she saw a photograph of her father she freaked out and left. When Prentiss and Rossi track her down and ask her about it she says that she made a mistake.

Morgan is sat at the end of the hospital bed and rolls a coin to the boy who is still under the table, after a while the boy begins to roll the coin back to him. The boys confidence builds and he decides to come from under the table however when one of the machines goes of to alert the doctor he races back under. You can see the trust the boy has in Morgan when after he calms him down the boy then comes back. JJ sits at the side of Morgan and asks the boy his name, the boy refuses to speak even when JJ asks him in Spanish but instead points to the wings on the coin Morgan has been rolling to him and then points to his back where JJ finds out he is called Angel. Morgan doesn’t leave Angel along and they bond as he teaches him how to turn the coin down his fingers.

Sam later returns to the station to see Prentiss and admits that her father use to keep her busy with sports because he was always busy at work and it was when she saw the news report on the boy that she had a flash of memory but she doesn’t know if it is real or not. The team have also worked out that the boys must have met the unsub before because after speaking to the new boy that disappeared parents they weren’t the type of children to just go off with strangers.

Prentiss decides it is best for Sam to undergo a cognitive interview where Sam reveals that she wasn’t feeling well so called out for her mother who was too weak so she crawled into bed with her. Something made her go downstairs into the basement and she sees a man putting a chained boy into the back of the truck, she cannot make out whether or not it is her father. After the interview is finished Sam claims that her father cannot be behind all of this because he raised her. The team have found out that JB Allen aka Sam’s father lives in a house that is pretty isolated and would be perfect for hiding a child.

Morgan and JJ go back to see Angel and quickly stop Angel from stabbing his arm. Meanwhile Garcia has tracked Angel’s mother down and she is on her way, it is then that Morgan tells JJ that Angel might not be ready to see her and his mother will just have to find a way to deal with it.

Angel’s mother tells JJ that she wants to hold her son when JJ suggests that they go and get a drink, as Morgan goes to see what is going on Angel grabs his arm so he stays put. JJ asks Angel’s mother why she never contacted the police when Angel was abducted and she said she had wanted to but if they found her they would send her back home and she had to protect her family.

Prentiss suggests that Sam should go back to the basement in her father’s home to see if it triggers anything else, they wire her up. She goes to her father’s place and asks if he still has her catcher’s mitt. He tries to distract her from going in the basement but as Sam persists he doesn’t stop her. After she didn’t find anything that links him to the abductions Rossi announces that all they have now is the kid.

Morgan is back at the hospital with Angel and is explaining that the challenge coin represents a French soldier who crawled his way through no mans land and into French territory and the French thought he was German and he was nearly executed, it wasn’t until another soldier recognised the marks on the coin that they knew he was telling the truth. Morgan then gives the coin to Angel and tells him to keep it as it has kept him safe over the years, he then goes on to tell him about Karl Bueffer was his coach and did some bad things to him when he was younger and he thought about slitting his wrists too but decided he never wanted to let the son of a bitch beat him. He promises Angel that the guy who did this to him will not win.

Back at the station Prentiss is asking Sam what her father was like as she was growing up and says that she thinks she has buried the extreme mood swings he used to have and then it comes to light he use to give her gifts to make up for them she said he gave her the catchers mitt and a bike and it had not been the bike she had asked for.

Morgan asks Angel what the man had done to him and he said he use to bite him and then shows him the bite marks, Morgan asks if he will let the doctors examine him in the hope that they can match dental records.

Prentiss asks Sam if her father had given her anything in 2004 and she remembers that’s when he had given her a puppy, after checking with Angel’s mother JJ tells the team that he had been playing with a puppy on the night he was abducted. JJ mentions that they are trying to get a match on the bite marks for dental records when Sam shockly announces that her father had his teeth capped a few years ago.

We then see JJ open a trap door and tell the new boy Billy not to give him any trouble.

Morgan rushes from the hospital when JJ tells him that the team are on their way to pick JB Allen up, they also found out that he met the children before by giving them rides on his construction sites

After the team couldn’t find JB Allen at his home they ask Sam if there is a particular work place that he is proud of and she gives them the address to his first development where he likes to add something to it each year – how long has he been killing?

We see JB Allen throw Billy in to the built out grave and begin to use the machine to bury him. He begins to run when the team catch up on him but Morgan is right behind him. When he catches up with him he begins to repeatedly punch him but Rossi stops him before he takes things too far.

Morgan is then back at the hospital with Angel who says he is ready to be reunited with his mother who embracing him in a hug.

Back at Quantico Morgan and JJ are in his office where he has a row of challenge coins and he explains that he gave Angel the only one that had wings on it. They discuss what happened to Morgan when he was younger and Morgan confesses that he wouldn’t be where he was today if it wasn’t for Karl Bueffer. JJ still apologises all the same. The episode ends with Morgan and JJ heading down the hall.