Demonology (Season 4, Episode 17)
Premise: When a childhood friend of Prentiss dies after a trip to Spain, the BAU traces a string of deaths to an exorcist priest shielded by diplomatic immunity.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 17
- Unsub
- Father Paul Silvano (Carmen Argenziano)
- Location
- Washington, D.C.
- 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
- “He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.” (Leonardo da Vinci, read by Prentiss)
- Closing quote
- “There is no heresy or philosophy so abhorrent to the church as a human being.” (James Joyce, read by Rossi)
- Guest stars
- Walton Goggins as John Cooley, Bruce Davison as Father Davison, James Remar as Tom Benton, Roxanne Hart as Andrea Benton, Danielle Lester as Young Prentiss
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Chris Mundy
Summary
The Case
“Demonology” begins on a rainy night in Washington, D.C., where John Cooley tells Prentiss that their childhood friend Matthew Benton is dead of an apparent heart attack. Before dying, Matthew claimed people were out to kill him and had already killed a man called Tommy V. Garcia identifies him as Thomas Valentine, recently dead of dehydration, and Hotch lets Prentiss look into it. Both bodies show light ligature marks, both homes have scuff marks under the bed, and both men traveled to Galicia, Spain, the same week four months earlier. Because drug abuse and mental illness are often taken for possession, the team considers whether the deaths were exorcisms. Rossi asks his friend Father Jimmy Davison about the rite. A third man from the Spain trip, Patrick Cavanaugh, dies of an aneurysm after a priest confronts him and begins the ritual. When Prentiss presses his fiancée, Valerie, a complaint follows, and with no police request the BAU has no case.
Garcia learns that Matthew had tried to start an online group for others who felt their faith had betrayed them, and that the priest at Santiago de Compostela died that week of a heart attack, rumored to be murder by nerve gas. The team briefs a group of priests, and a search of Catholic hospital admissions for exhaustion turns up Father Paul Silvano. He admits he was present at all three deaths but denies killing anyone, and he holds diplomatic immunity through an Italian government mission that lasts until month’s end. He is released. Matthew’s father, Tom, admits he watched his son die during the ritual, and the Bentons say Silvano called Matthew a conduit for evil. That points to John, and Morgan and Prentiss find Silvano exorcising him. They stop it before he dies.
The Team
Prentiss tells Rossi that at 15, while living in Rome, she became pregnant, and their priest said she would not be welcome if she had an abortion. Matthew found a doctor, stayed with her, and then walked her into church with her head up. She believes his anger at the church, and his drug use, began then. Hotch orders her to take time off, but she goes after the case with Rossi’s help.
The ending
Spoiler: Prentiss offers up her gun and badge. Silvano learns that the Vatican intervened and Italy withdrew his diplomatic status, and he is driven to the airport for a flight to Rome. The agents debate whether evil exists, and Hotch says everyone is capable of terrible acts.
Why it stands out
- Carmen Argenziano guest-stars as Father Paul Silvano, the priest behind the fatal exorcisms, with Bruce Davison as Rossi’s friend Father Jimmy Davison.
- The exorcism case Rossi points to is real: William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist after a Georgetown professor, himself a priest, told him about a possessed boy whose family lived near Washington.
- James Remar, who plays Matthew’s father, also starred in Dexter, the series about a serial killer who kills other murderers.