Doubt (Season 3, Episode 1)
Premise: When three brunette students are stabbed to death on an Arizona campus, the BAU arrests a security guard who fits its profile, until another student dies while he is locked up.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 1
- Unsub
- Nathan Tubbs (Vince Grant), Anna Begley (Shelly Cole)
- Location
- Flagstaff, Arizona
- 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)
- Guest stars
- Shawn Michael Patrick as Det. Jim Griffith, Elizabeth Hendrickson as Katie, Tori White as Aliza, Anthony Diaz-Perez as Paul Davies, Angela Oh as Stephanie
- Director
- Gloria Muzio
- Writers
- Chris Mundy
Summary
The Case
“Doubt” begins, after a recap of last season, with Gideon writing a letter to whoever comes to check on him at his cabin, recalling the first case after Sarah’s murder. At a small university in Flagstaff, Arizona, three brunette students have been stabbed to death, the latest, Amy, at a well-lit shuttle stop. Each was stabbed far more than needed yet left with her arms crossed, a sign of remorse, and none fought back. Reid tells a meeting with the dean that the killer is likely part of the campus, and the school decides to close.
The profile describes a spree killer set off by a rejection, likely by a brunette wife or girlfriend. Marks on a body suggest a taser, which campus guards carry instead of guns. Garcia finds that Nathan Tubbs, one of four guards at every scene, failed a police psych evaluation and lost custody of his daughter. Tubbs is stopped at gunpoint while driving a young brunette to her car. Gideon presses him, but nothing physical ties him to the murders; police hold him for 72 hours over his lawyer’s protests, and the campus relaxes.
Then another student, Aliza, is found dead, knocked out by a blow to the head, with shallow, hesitant stab wounds and no posing. An unsigned note says Tubbs is innocent. The team weighs Richard Jewell and suspects a copycat or groupie, like the woman Kenneth Bianchi talked into attempting a murder. Tubbs is released and tailed by Morgan and Prentiss. Dorm mates report that Anna Begley has dyed her hair dark, refuses to leave, keeps bloodied murder clippings on her wall and talks of suicide, and Reid calls Gideon to say he knows who they want.
The Team
Gideon’s letter runs through the episode. He writes that he sees Sarah in every victim, that he has lost the solid footing a profiler needs, and that he may have let a wish to see someone punished for her death cloud his judgment. Prentiss also takes a call from a superior, addressed as ma’am, who wants updates on the case.
The ending
Spoiler: Anna meets Tubbs in a quiet courtyard while Gideon and Hotch watch on a campus camera. She says she killed a girl for him and begs him to kill her with her knife; he refuses. As agents close in, Anna kills Tubbs and then herself. Section Chief Erin Strauss suspends Hotch for two weeks without pay pending an inquiry. Gideon’s letter calls that the last domino and ends with an apology; the episode does not show who finds it.
Why it stands out
- The cabin where Gideon writes his letter is the same one later seen in Sons of Anarchy (2008).
- Anna’s pendant is the heartagram, the emblem of the Finnish rock band HIM.