Mayhem (Season 4, Episode 1)
Premise: After a car bomb in Manhattan leaves Hotch and a fellow agent stranded in a sealed blast zone, the BAU learns the terror cell’s real target is still to come.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 1
- Unsub
- Sam (Michael Steger), Ben Abner (Adoni Maropis)
- 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)
- Opening quote
- “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” (Ernest Hemingway, 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, Greg Collins as Captain Warner
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Simon Mirren
Summary
The Case
“Mayhem” picks up in Manhattan moments after a bomb goes off beneath an FBI SUV near 26 Federal Plaza. Hotch, his ear damaged by the blast, finds Kate Joyner, the head of the New York field office, lying in the street with a bleeding wound in her back. A young man who gives his name as Sam stays to help while Hotch keeps the artery closed. Because the team’s own profile warned that this cell targets first responders, the police seal off the area, and no ambulance is allowed in.
With the phone network failing, the scattered team checks in one by one, and JJ turns up safe after her call cuts out. Homeland Security floods the earlier shooting sites, expecting suicide bombers, but finds nothing. Garcia’s surveillance feeds show the bomb was planted under the SUV and that the bomber watched the blast, then walked up to Hotch: it is Sam. Morgan defies Captain Warner’s cordon to reach Hotch, then chases Sam into the subway, where Sam dies on the tracks. A paramedic slips through on his own, and Hotch drives the ambulance to St. Barclay’s, a hospital the Secret Service has closed to emergencies, and Kate is taken in when she crashes.
In the ER, Hotch decides the profile is wrong: the shootings, the earlier suicide by cop and the SUV bomb were all diversions. Sam’s phone shows six calls to one number, the paramedic’s, whose job was to drive a larger bomb past every roadblock into the hospital, where the Secret Service is guarding someone in surgery. Garcia jams the area’s cell signals for a few minutes while Morgan finds the rigged ambulance in the basement and drives it north toward open ground as she counts down. The paramedic is cornered and ordered to put down his phone.
The Team
Garcia loses track of Morgan’s signal and keeps calling his name. He comes back on the line safe and calls her his “god-given solace,” and she tells him she is too angry to talk to him yet.
The ending
Spoiler: Kate dies in surgery. A team member visits Detective Cooper, who is recovering from a gunshot wound, with Mets tickets. Hotch cannot fly, so Morgan reassigns his driver and takes him home by car. Hotch tells him Quantico wants him to run the New York office; he did not recommend Morgan, judging that he still does not truly trust anyone, but the job is his if he wants it. Morgan says he has always trusted Hotch with his life, and his decision is left open.
Why it stands out
- Sienna Guillory and Erik Palladino return as Kate Joyner and Detective Cooper, continuing the New York case from the end of season 3.
- It is the last episode in which Reid carries a 9mm Glock 17; he then switches to a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver.
- On its first broadcast the episode was delayed 15 minutes in Eastern and Central markets by a presidential address.