Riding the Lightning (Season 1, Episode 14)
Premise: Hours before a convicted killer couple is executed in Florida, the BAU interviews them, and Gideon comes to believe the wife never killed anyone.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 14
- Unsub
- Jacob Dawes (Michael Massee)
- Location
- Florida
- Starring
- Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Elle Greenaway (Lola Glaudini), Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore), Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (A.J. Cook), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness)
- Opening quote
- “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” (Genesis 9:6, read by Gideon)
- Closing quote
- “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” (Albert Pine, read by Gideon)
- Guest stars
- Jeannetta Arnette as Sarah Jean Dawes, Constance Towers as Deb Mason, Roger Aaron Brown as Warden Charles Diehl, Michael B. Silver as Sam Shapiro, Ren Casey as Riley
- Director
- Chris Long
- Writers
- Simon Mirren
Summary
The Case
“Riding the Lightning” takes the BAU to a Florida prison where husband and wife Jacob and Sarah Jean Dawes are due to be executed within 36 hours for murdering 12 teenage girls. A 13th body, Hilary Dixon’s, has just turned up under the living room of Sarah Jean’s mother. Garcia comes along to record the interviews for VICAP. Jacob, a sexual psychopath, claims his wife lured girls from mall parking lots to his workshop, where he tortured, dismembered and buried them. Sarah Jean confessed only to killing their 2-year-old son, Riley, who vanished soon after police first questioned Jacob 15 years earlier.
While Hotch questions Jacob, Morgan and Elle visit Sarah Jean’s mother, Deb Mason, who shares a letter in which her daughter blames the deaths on her own neglect. Gideon decides Sarah Jean never killed anyone: Jacob’s fantasy required him to be alone with his victims, and the team believes she was the anonymous woman who tipped off police. JJ joins Hotch, and Jacob stakes another victim on a poker hand against the chance to smell her hair; afterward he says there are no other bodies. When the governor grants Sarah Jean a stay, Jacob offers to show where Riley is buried, but the body under a gazebo he built is Ashley Farley, a 14-year-old whose family Sarah Jean cleaned for. The team reads it as Jacob’s bid to make his wife his final victim.
Gideon reads one of Sarah Jean’s paintings, a boy in a basket by a river, as the story of Moses: she sent Riley somewhere safe. The warden allows five minutes in her cell and lets her outside to see the full moon; a clipped photo of a teenage boy turns up. Jacob goes to the electric chair calling out to her. Sarah Jean refuses to help, saying Riley must never learn who his parents are. Lists of couples hoping to adopt in 1990 lead to the Sheffields, who moved to Keystone Heights a month after Riley vanished, and the photo matches Byron Sheffield, a 17-year-old cello prodigy. Morgan and Elle race there as Sarah Jean is readied for the chair.
The Team
Sarah Jean turns the questions on Gideon, who says he is not married and has a 25-year-old son whose picture he keeps in his office rather than with him.
The ending
Spoiler: Frank Sheffield pulls up with the boy just as Morgan and Elle reach the house. Sarah Jean begs Gideon not to let her son become Jacob’s last victim, and Gideon has Morgan told it is the wrong house; the agents apologize to Sheffield. With no word from the governor, Sarah Jean thanks Gideon and asks that his be the last face she sees.
Why it stands out
- The title is slang for death in the electric chair; Metallica’s 1984 album and song Ride the Lightning take their name from the same phrase.
- Jeannetta Arnette and Michael Massee guest star as Sarah Jean and Jacob Dawes, the condemned couple at the center of the case.