Lo-Fi (Season 3, Episode 20)
Premise: When random shootings spread fear across New York, the BAU joins a strained FBI and police task force and begins to see a terrorist plot behind the killings.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 3, Episode 20
- Unsub
- Unidentified unsubs
- Location
- New York, New York
- 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)
- Opening quote
- “The man visited by ecstasies and visions, who takes dreams for realities, is an enthusiast. The man who supports his madness with murder is a fanatic.” (Voltaire, read by Hotch)
- Guest stars
- Sienna Guillory as Kate Joyner, Erik Palladino as Detective Cooper, Jack McGee as Detective Brustin, Moe Daniels as Lisa Bartleby
- Director
- Glenn Kershaw
- Writers
- Chris Mundy
Summary
The Case
“Lo-Fi” sends the BAU to New York City, where someone is killing people in crowded places at midday with a single .22 shot to the head, roughly every two days and each time in a different neighborhood, with no link between the victims. Kate Joyner, who runs the FBI’s New York field office and once worked at Scotland Yard, calls Hotch directly, but her joint task force is straining against NYPD detectives Brustin and Cooper; Brustin, who walked a beat in the Son of Sam days, says this is worse. Garcia joins analyst Lisa Bartleby in the city’s surveillance center, where camera footage shows a hooded gunman who knows where the lenses are. A tarot death card at one scene echoes the D.C. snipers, and Garcia’s analysis of the footage shows two shooters of different heights.
The team profiles an organized pair with a steady job, possibly a gang initiation, but a killing at the 59th and Lexington subway stop plays out live on camera with no police nearby, and the gunman escapes. A third shooter follows. While Prentiss works the streets undercover with Cooper, a gunman shoots someone near them, flees, then stops and waits; he shoots Cooper and is shot by Prentiss, carries no ID and is not expected to live. Suspecting a deliberate suicide by cop, the team reads the pattern anew: disciplined followers, counter-surveillance and a hierarchy point to a home-grown terrorist cell running low-tech practice attacks to time police response, with every killing near a bridge or tunnel such as the Holland Tunnel. Garcia then finds that the group has hacked one camera at every crime scene and has been watching the investigation from the start.
The Team
Will arrives in New York, JJ tells the team she is pregnant, and Will announces he has asked her to marry him. He wants her to step back from the field, but she refuses to leave the case. Morgan learns he is the top candidate to replace Joyner if the case fails, and after the subway shooting he accuses Hotch of siding with her and is sent to cool off. Over a drink, Rossi asks whether he would take the job; Morgan says the BAU wears people out, pointing to Gideon’s exit and Hotch’s strained time with his son, and Rossi promises to pull him out himself if he ever starts losing it.
The ending
Spoiler: Hotch hands out assignments, has JJ run point from the office and sends her to Will, who is heading home to New Orleans, before congratulating her. Cooper remains in surgery with poor odds, and the episode ends with the BAU saying it thinks it knows what the attacks are about, leaving the case unresolved.
Why it stands out
- This is the season 3 finale, and it ends with the case unresolved.
- Erik Palladino, who plays Detective Cooper, also played an NYPD homicide detective on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.