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.