P911 (Season 2, Episode 2)
Premise: When a boy the FBI lost track of a year ago appears in a live online auction, the BAU joins the Crimes Against Children Unit to find him before the sale closes.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 2
- Unsub
- Michael Earlson (David Pevsner)
- Location
- Alexandria, Virginia; Mount Pleasant, Virginia
- 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
- “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, read by Gideon)
- Guest stars
- Mary Page Keller as Katie Cole, John Rubinstein as Hayden Rawlings, Daryl Sabara as Kevin, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as Agt. Amanda Gilroy, Michael Len as Peter, Tisha Terrasini Banker as Jackie Powers
- Director
- Adam Davidson
- Writers
- Simon Mirren
Summary
The Case
“P911” begins when Katie Cole, a former BAU profiler who now runs the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Unit, calls in the team: a boy her unit named Peter, who vanished from pedophile websites a year ago, has resurfaced on a live feed, and an auction clock is counting down to his sale. The site is routed through Belarus, so the team works back from a chat room hosted in Cleveland, Ohio. Garcia follows a credit card used by the uploader, Hugz, to a house in Richmond, Virginia, where agents find Kevin, a teenager whose abusive father has been in jail for eight months and who sells himself to clients online. Kevin got Peter’s video from a client called Mehtevas and agrees to set up a meeting with him.
The team realizes that Peter’s padded room has no door or windows, as if built around him, and a torn patch on the boy’s shirt is traced to a church wilderness group, the Tadpoles. Mehtevas turns out to be Hayden Rawlings, an elementary school principal arrested at a meeting with Kevin outside his school in Alexandria. Rawlings insists he wanted to rescue Peter, but admits he is the high bidder and gives up the seller’s screen name, Manchild, and a code word. When the arrest hits the news, the feed goes dark; JJ has a TV station report a fake search elsewhere, and the auction comes back online.
In Mount Pleasant, Virginia, a Tadpoles photo at the church and school records identify the boy as Charlie Sparks, a first grader whose father took his school records. The team reasons that the unsub hid Peter away after a scare a year earlier, so he must be someone Katie interviewed. Garcia’s check of Katie’s old list leaves two men living nearby, and the team settles on Michael Earlson.
The Team
Elle returns after four months of medical leave and begs Hotch to put her back to work. Because her doctor has not cleared her for the field, he sends her to the Crimes Against Children Unit with Reid, and he is unhappy when the two of them turn up at the sting in Alexandria anyway.
The ending
Spoiler: The auction clock runs out, but agents reach the boy at Earlson’s home, where he calls for his daddy as he is rescued. Peter is really Dustin Powers, taken from Newark, New Jersey, as a one-year-old. His mother, Jackie Powers, is told not to say who she is yet; she meets him gently, and he introduces her to Jack, his toy soldier. Katie, who blames herself for giving up the search a year earlier, admits she is no longer sure she can keep doing the job.
Why it stands out
- The title is internet slang often exploited by pedophiles, short for “parent emergency.”
- Katie Cole is based on Emily Vacher, an FBI agent who managed the bureau’s Endangered Child Alert Program.
- Reid begins wearing glasses here; they are Matthew Gray Gubler’s own, worn because he was allergic to contact lens solution.