In Name and Blood (Season 3, Episode 2)
Premise: With Gideon missing and Hotch and Prentiss on their way out, the BAU and Section Chief Strauss hunt a Milwaukee killer who cuts out women’s hearts and uses his young son to lure them.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 2
- Unsub
- Joe Smith (Eddie Cibrian)
- Location
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- 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), Haley Hotchner (Meredith Monroe), Jack Hotchner (Cade Owens)
- Opening quote
- “Let your heart feel for the affliction and distress of everyone.” (George Washington, read by Hotch)
- Guest stars
- Gordon Clapp as Det. Vic Wolynski, Chandler Canterbury as David Smith, Yvonne Jung as Claire, Stefan Marks as Bill Thompson, Lori Skope as Ms Bennett
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Chris Mundy
Summary
The Case
“In Name and Blood” finds the BAU short-handed: Gideon has vanished, and Reid waited all night for him. In Milwaukee, mothers in their thirties are being taken from busy places in Wauwatosa, held 48 hours and dumped in the Third Ward with their hearts crudely cut out; a fifth body turns up as the team arrives. Section Chief Erin Strauss leads the trip and scolds Detective Vic Wolynski for calling so late, then tells JJ not to question her again.
Hotch notices that every abduction and dumping is timed around the school day. At a department store, a boy asks Claire Thompson to help find his father, who then threatens to gut the boy unless she comes home with them. Store footage shows Claire with the child, and the team concludes the killer is using his own son. The profile describes a laborer with borderline personality disorder, and counselors are asked to look for a troubled boy who clings to women. At home Joe Smith tells his son David the women leave because of him, and Claire’s body soon appears at a new dump site.
Reid suggests the boy is a model pupil, never late, eager to please an unstable parent. The search turns up David, whose mother left after Joe learned he had an inoperable tumor. The school nurse has just driven David home, and Joe seizes her. Lacking probable cause, Strauss wants to wait, so Prentiss, who has resigned, knocks as a civilian. David lets her in; she finds the nurse, and Joe has David point a gun at her before agents storm in and the boy lets it go. The nurse survives; Joe says he will die before any trial.
The Team
Hotch, back from suspension, agrees with Haley that leaving is right and requests a transfer, and Prentiss resigns to take the Foreign Service exam. Garcia slips Hotch the case file, and when Morgan says his transfer never entered the system, Hotch goes, over Haley’s objection that the work will never stop. He tells Prentiss he believes Strauss placed her on the team to dig up dirt on him and that she quit rather than give it, and asks her to come for one more case.
The ending
Spoiler: Strauss will not officially approve of how the arrest came about and warns that none of them will rise in the chain of command. Hotch asks why he would ever leave the BAU, but then says he must talk to Haley first. Reid finds Gideon’s cabin empty but for the letter, addressed to him. At a diner, Gideon tells a waitress he is headed nowhere in particular, and says in voice-over that he is looking for his old belief in happy endings.
Why it stands out
- Television listings gave the episode the title “In Birth and Death.”
- Eddie Cibrian (Joe Smith) and Yvonne Jung (Claire) had worked together on the series Third Watch.