Profiler, Profiled (Season 2, Episode 12)
Premise: When Morgan is arrested in his hometown for a boy’s murder, the BAU has to clear one of its own, and the trail leads to the man who mentored him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 12
- Unsub
- Carl Buford (Julius Tennon)
- Location
- Chicago, Illinois
- Starring
- Jason Gideon (Mandy Patinkin), Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner (Thomas Gibson), Derek Morgan (Shemar Moore), Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler), Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster), Jennifer “JJ” Jareau (A.J. Cook), Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness)
- Opening quote
- “All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That’s in the nature of secrets.” (Cory Doctorow, read by Morgan)
- Guest stars
- Skipp Sudduth as Detective Stan Gordinski, Jascha Washington as James Barfield, Kerrie Keane as Fran, Erica Gimpel as Sarah, James MacDonald as Detective Dennison
- Director
- Glenn Kershaw
- Writers
- Edward Allen Bernero
Summary
The Case
“Profiler, Profiled” finds Morgan home in Chicago for his mother’s birthday when Detective Stan Gordinski, who arrested him again and again as a teenager, takes him into custody in front of his family. Damien Walters, a boy Morgan played football with at a youth center and drove home the day before, has been found dead, and Gordinski ties Morgan to two unidentified boys killed years apart. Morgan himself discovered the first, in a vacant lot in 1991, raised money to bury him and visits the grave on every trip home; the second turned up four years ago, just after Morgan left the city. Gordinski’s case rests on a profile Gideon wrote for him and on Morgan’s FBI card in Damien’s pocket.
With the team in Chicago, Gideon warns Gordinski that profiles are better for ruling suspects out, and the agents conclude that the detective has bent the facts to fit a man he disliked and that someone is framing Morgan. Garcia unseals Morgan’s juvenile record, expunged on the word of youth center director Carl Buford. Buford, a local hero friendly with Gordinski, says Morgan charmed people past his faults, claims they have not spoken in years, and proves to be the one who saw Morgan leave with Damien. When Hotch presses him about Buford, Morgan tells him to stay out of his business, then slips out of custody, and Hotch realizes what Morgan has been afraid the team would find.
The Team
Morgan’s past comes out. His mother, Fran, tells the agents that Derek was with his father when he was killed stopping a robbery, that the boy later fell in with older gang members, and that Buford became a surrogate father who changed his life through football. Hotch confronts Morgan over the sealed record, which includes aggravated battery from a teenage fight with Rodney Harris, a gang member who has been trailing him this visit. Morgan insists the record was wiped clean and that his private life is his own.
The ending
Spoiler: Morgan finds Damien’s teammate James Barfield practicing alone at night and tells him that Buford sexually abused him as a boy, after plying him with drinks at a cabin in Wisconsin. James admits Buford is doing the same to him and that Damien had urged him to call Morgan. Morgan then confronts Buford, whom the statute of limitations now shields from Morgan’s own case, and accuses him of killing Damien to keep James quiet and setting Morgan up for it, predicting that other boys will now come forward. Buford denies everything, says he pulled Morgan out of the gutter and that Morgan could have refused, and Morgan arrests him. When Buford asks for help, Morgan tells him to go to hell.
Why it stands out
- Shemar Moore later named this as one of his favorite episodes, for the backstory it gave Morgan and his larger part in it.
- Morgan’s sealed file gives his birth date as June 6, 1973, making the character a few years younger than Moore.
- Skipp Sudduth, who plays Gordinski, went on to direct “About Face,” Joe Mantegna’s first episode as David Rossi.