No Way Out, Part II: The Evilution of Frank (Season 2, Episode 23)
Premise: When Frank Breitkopf kills a woman in Gideon’s apartment and leaves him under suspicion, the BAU hunts Frank as he targets the people Gideon has saved.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 2, Episode 23
- Unsub
- Frank Breitkopf (Keith Carradine)
- Location
- Washington, D.C.; McLean, Virginia; New York, New York
- 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), Erin Strauss (Jayne Atkinson)
- Opening quote
- “I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, my enemies for their good intellects.” (Oscar Wilde, read by Gideon)
- Guest stars
- Amy Madigan as Jane, Elle Fanning as Tracy Belle, Amanda Bernero as Rebecca Bryant, Josh Barker as Mr. Belle, Wolf Muser as Samuel
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Simon Mirren
Summary
The Case
“No Way Out, Part II: The Evilution of Frank” begins with Gideon fussing over flowers for dinner with Sarah, an old college friend, and arriving home late to find Frank Breitkopf there with her. Frank quizzes him about birds and demands Jane, who he thinks came to Washington to find Gideon. Sarah is drugged and mutilated, and because witnesses saw a blood-covered Gideon running down the street with a gun, the police treat him as a suspect and the BAU is ordered to keep out. JJ photographs the scene for Garcia, and a piece of human rib in Sarah’s hand reads as Frank’s message to the team. Gideon tells Hotch he nearly caught Frank but had no clean shot; Hotch keeps him away from the police and has Garcia bring him his case files.
Frank leaves word that he will kill them all unless he gets Jane. The torn first page of Gideon’s notebook, a list of the lives he has saved, points to the targets, nine of them nearby. Posing as Gideon, Frank visits Rebecca Bryant and kills her before the team reaches her, leaving a note for a 7 a.m. meeting at Union Station. Police arrest Jane for assaulting an officer, and Prentiss collects her from a cell. The one target unaccounted for is Tracy Belle, the girl Gideon saved in the earlier case, whose family moved to McLean, Virginia; she has been taken from home.
The pattern of Frank’s victims leads the team to see Jane, the only one he spared, as a mother figure to him. Jane says he grew up in Manhattan with a German mother, Mary Breitkopf, and that he once tried to kill her but stopped himself. Garcia finds a Mary Breitkopf arrested 63 times for solicitation, with no death record. Frank puts Tracy on the phone to Gideon. At Union Station a sniper is ordered to hold fire because of civilians, and the standoff shifts to Manhattan.
The Team
Hotch tells Gideon that personnel files have been requested six months early. Section Chief Erin Strauss later tells Hotch he is no longer effective; he reads her own office and family back to her, then defends each member of his team. Strauss then reminds Prentiss that she placed her in the BAU and says that, to stay, Prentiss will help end Hotch’s career.
The ending
Spoiler: Frank will give up Tracy only for Jane. Gideon lays out Frank’s childhood with a mother who turned to prostitution while the boy watched, and calls him common. Told that Frank sees her only as a mother, Jane says she loves him and goes to him as the agents shout her name. Tracy is safe and later calls to thank Gideon.
Why it stands out
- The episode introduces Section Chief Erin Strauss, played by Jayne Atkinson.
- Keith Carradine and Amy Madigan return as Frank Breitkopf and Jane, and Elle Fanning returns as Tracy Belle, all from part one, “No Way Out.”
- Gideon settles on yellow button mums, the same flowers Mandy Patinkin bought for his first date with his future wife, Kathryn Grody.