Extreme Aggressor (Season 1, Episode 1)
Premise: Called back from medical leave, Jason Gideon leads the BAU to Seattle to stop a pair of killers before their latest captive’s time runs out.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 1
- Unsub
- Tim Vogel, “The Seattle Strangler” (Andrew Jackson), Richard Slessman (DJ Qualls)
- Location
- Seattle, Washington
- Starring
- Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini), Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore), Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness), Haley Hotchner (Meredith Monroe)
- Opening quote
- “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” (Joseph Conrad, read by Gideon)
- Closing quote
- “When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, read by Gideon)
- Guest stars
- Lukas Haas as Clerk (The Footpath Killer), Chelah Horsdal as Heather Woodland, David James Lewis as David Woodland, Louise Grant as Mrs. Slessman, Hiro Kanagawa as Seattle ASAC
- Ripped from the headlines
- Gideon’s accurate prediction that a killer would stutter is based on a real case worked by FBI agent John Douglas, former head of the bureau’s Investigative Support Unit.
- Director
- Richard Shepard
- Writers
- Jeff Davis
Summary
The Case
“Extreme Aggressor” opens with Heather Woodland, a young woman shopping for a used Datsun Z, riding with a man who will not stop the car. In Seattle a killer the press calls the Seattle Strangler has murdered four women in four months, holding each for seven days and choking them with a belt that tightens like a crank. A virus sent to Heather’s work computer leaves a plea to be caught, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit has about a day and a half to find her. Jason Gideon, off duty for six months, flies in with Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner, Derek Morgan and Dr. Spencer Reid, and Seattle agent Elle Greenaway, who wants a place on the unit, joins them.
Despite contradictions in the evidence, the team delivers a profile on deadline. Elle draws suspect Richard Slessman, an ex-convict who lives with his grandmother, out of the house for arrest. Heather is not there, and Slessman has no scratches to match the victims’ defensive wounds. His computer will wipe itself after six wrong passwords, and a Go board in his attic shows him playing both sides as an extreme aggressor. He needles Gideon about Boston, where catching a man named Adrian Bale cost six agents, but he slips by speaking of Heather as still alive.
The team concludes there is a second, dominant partner. A friend the grandmother recalls, cellmate Charles Linder, died two months earlier, but at Cascadia prison guard Tim Vogel turns out to have protected Slessman inside. Slessman is told he owes Vogel nothing, and Reid unlocks the computer with “Enter Sandman,” the song from the one empty CD case, revealing a webcam feed of Heather alive. Agents stop Vogel’s car and find a co-worker at the wheel, who says Vogel borrowed his Dodge Dakota. A swaying bulb in the feed points to a boat, and Slessman names Allied shipyard, where Elle goes in without waiting for backup.
The Team
Hotch and his pregnant wife, Haley, argue over baby names, and Gideon is one of them. Hotch has been asked to judge whether Gideon is fit to return, while Morgan worries about signs of post-traumatic stress, such as Gideon refusing to stand with his back to a window. After the rescue, the fact that Gideon saved Heather is judged answer enough.
The ending
Spoiler: At the shipyard Gideon taunts Vogel about his manhood until the gun swings from Heather toward him, and Gideon comes out unhurt while Heather is rescued. Later, trading names Haley likes that all belong to notorious killers, Gideon lets Hotch know he is aware of the report. The final scene shows a store clerk with a heavy stutter, matching a lecture’s earlier prediction about Virginia’s Footpath Killer.
Why it stands out
- Gideon recites four different quotations in the series premiere, the most in any single episode.
- Lukas Haas, who plays the stuttering clerk, first auditioned for the role of Spencer Reid.
- Gideon is one of the names floated for Hotch’s baby; Mandy Patinkin has a son named Gideon.