Normal (Season 4, Episode 11)
Premise: A seemingly ordinary father turns Orange County’s freeways into a shooting gallery, and the BAU races to reach his family before he does.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 11
- Unsub
- Norman Hill, “The Road Warrior” (Mitch Pileggi)
- Location
- Orange County, California
- 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), Jordan Todd (Meta Golding)
- Opening quote
- “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin to slit throats.” (H.L. Mencken, read by Hotch)
- Closing quote
- “There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.” (Dwight Eisenhower, read by Rossi)
- Guest stars
- Gina Torres as Detective Thea Salinas, Faith Ford as Vanessa Hill, Elaine Hendrix as Judy Hannity, Danny Nucci as Burke Manning, Drew Garrett as Rick Hannity
- Director
- Steve Boyum
- Writers
- Andrew Wilder
Summary
The Case
“Normal” takes the BAU to Orange County, California, where a gunman the media call the Road Warrior is shotgunning drivers. His first target, real estate broker Judy Hannity, survived on the 91 freeway but is paralyzed from the waist down; the next two women died. Detective Thea Salinas runs the task force. Questioned again by Hotch and Prentiss, Judy admits she cut the man off, refused to let him speak and mocked his driving before he fired. Her son, Rick, blames himself.
The team reads the blond victims as stand-ins for the unsub’s wife and ties the shootings to roadwork merges where he can wait to be cut off. A flagman recalls a slow white sedan whose driver wore a leather jacket and mirrored sunglasses at night and threw an arm across an empty passenger seat. The profilers decide he is a married father breaking from reality and warn that he will kill his family. After Todd releases the profile, Norman Hill, who handles travel expenses at his firm, hears the broadcast as voices calling him a loser. He then guns down two men at an intersection from his own blue SUV, and the timing tells the team he works nearby.
A second appeal describes an office worker and urges him to surrender. At home Norman tells his wife, Vanessa, that he is the Road Warrior, and she laughs it off. A co-worker calls in, and the agents learn that Norman’s young daughter, Jenny, died months earlier and that Vanessa works at the same firm and was just promoted. Norman then drives his family on a wild ride with police behind him, as his wife and daughters blame him for Jenny’s death. Agents reach the Hill house while others join the pursuit. When the car stops, Norman insists his family is inside, but it is empty: he killed them before the BAU was ever called, and he collapses in grief and is arrested.
The Team
When the intersection shooting follows Todd’s press conference, she asks whether the team knew her words might set him off; she is told that risk comes with speaking to the public and asked whether she can do the job, and she says she can. Afterward she admits she is not sure she can, and is told that is all right.
The ending
Spoiler: Back at Quantico, JJ surprises the team in the BAU room with her baby son, wanting one happy memory in a place that never smiles. Morgan takes the baby, who grins at him.
Why it stands out
- Mitch Pileggi guest-stars as Norman Hill, with Faith Ford as his wife, Vanessa, and Gina Torres as Detective Thea Salinas.
- Norman’s retro 1960s glasses are a nod to John List, the family annihilator who killed his mother and his family in 1971 and eluded capture for nearly 20 years.
- Pileggi and Shemar Moore had earlier played father and son in the 2002 film Nature of the Beast.