In Heat (Season 3, Episode 17)
Premise: When a killer in Miami begins taking the lives and identities of gay men traveling alone, the BAU races to find him, while JJ’s hidden romance with Will comes out.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 17
- Unsub
- Steven Fitzgerald (Michael Graziadei)
- Location
- Miami, Florida
- Starring
- David Rossi (Joe Mantegna), 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), William “Will” LaMontagne Jr. (Josh Stewart), Kevin Lynch (Nicholas Brendon)
- Opening quote
- “There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.” (George Bernard Shaw, read by JJ)
- Closing quote
- “If we knew each other’s secrets, what comforts we should find.” (John Churton Collins, read by JJ)
- Guest stars
- Tia Texada as Detective Tina Lopez, Wendy Hoopes as Sarah Fitzgerald, David Monahan as Deacon Rogers, James Martin Kelly as David Fitzgerald
- Ripped from the headlines
- The case may have been inspired, at least in part, by the real-life Black Doodler killer.
- Director
- John Gallagher
- Writers
- Andi Bushell
Summary
The Case
“In Heat” brings the BAU to Miami, where three visiting men, the latest Charles Luvet, have been suffocated in two months and left in busy places. With no marks or broken hyoid bones, a chokehold from behind seems likely. Four more such men are missing. Detective Tina Lopez leads the local effort, and New Orleans detective Will LaMontagne arrives to identify Luvet, his longtime partner, whose gun and badge are gone. Garcia locates Luvet’s rental car, whose GPS points to a South Beach gay bar, and the regatta he cited isn’t until September. The profile: a charming local in his twenties, possibly with defensive tactics training, who may be conflicted about his own sexuality.
At the bar, the unsub introduces himself as Charlie Luvet, a New Orleans cop, to Deacon Rogers, a visitor from Odessa, Texas. Outside, when the drunken Rogers plays up the cop fantasy, the unsub calls him disgusting and kills him. Interrupted by a busboy, the killer claims they were mugged and runs off; Luvet’s badge turns up nearby. The team concludes he takes over each victim’s identity; he ransacks Rogers’s hotel room, then gives a German hitchhiker a ride. Noting that the first two missing men vanished the same day, the BAU visits the family of Steven Fitzgerald, who took a bus to Miami two months earlier. His father, David, a devout prison guard, calls his son’s homosexuality filthy and admits disciplining him with guard tactics; his sister, Sarah, paid for Steven’s escape. The team tells the father that Steven is the killer.
Rogers’s vehicle turns up with the hitchhiker, Michael Aldridge, dead nearby and a youth hostel receipt in his name. Lopez and Morgan find Steven in a crowded hostel, speaking with a German accent and insisting he is Michael. Morgan puts his gun away and reminds Steven of his sister’s love, and Steven surrenders, insisting he never did anything with the other men.
The Team
Garcia’s boyfriend, Kevin Lynch, surprises her with dinner when she works late and suggests a vacation. JJ and Will have been seeing each other on weekends, but she has told no one, and in Miami their link is presented as purely professional. Will asks whether she is ashamed of him, and after more friction he says goodbye.
The ending
Spoiler: Will takes Luvet’s belongings and tells JJ that what hurts is that his friend felt he had to hide who he was. Urged by a colleague to go after him, JJ catches Will before he leaves and admits she kept quiet because making it public would make it real, and she has always run from getting hurt; she says she doesn’t want to run anymore, and they kiss as the team watches, unsurprised.
Why it stands out
- Tia Texada and Josh Stewart had played police officers together on the series Third Watch.
- The unsub’s upper-back tattoo, briefly visible when he steps out of the pool at the bar, reads VERITAS, Latin for truth.