Conflicted (Season 4, Episode 20)
Premise: When male spring breakers are raped and murdered at a Texas beach hotel, the BAU hunts a man-and-woman team, then finds both live inside one troubled worker.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 20
- Unsub
- Adam Jackson, “Amanda” (Jackson Rathbone)
- Location
- South Padre Island, Texas; Corpus Christi, Texas
- 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
- “Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always gotten there first, and is waiting for it.” (Terry Pratchett, read by Reid)
- Closing quote
- “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us. And sometimes, they win.” (Stephen King, read by Reid)
- Guest stars
- Susan Ward as Julie Riley, Roma Maffia as Det. Reese Evans, Natalie Marston as Madison Cooke, Allen Perada as Mark Harrison, Patrick John Hurley as Michael Browder
- Director
- Jason Alexander
- Writers
- Rick Dunkle
Summary
The Case
“Conflicted” opens with Reid visiting a patient in an institution and asking to talk to Adam, who the patient says will not be found. The story then turns to South Padre Island, Texas, at the end of spring break. Two male students, William Browder and Dan Keller, have been sexually assaulted and suffocated at the Hudson Street Hotel, their naked bodies left curled up; Keller’s was hidden in a closet while a fake online checkout sent housekeeping in to clean. Hotch, Prentiss and JJ work with Detective Reese Evans, while Rossi, Morgan and Reid meet the manager, Julie Riley, and Adam Jackson, a jittery maintenance worker who found Keller’s body. The victims were tied up without a fight and not drugged, and both were aggressive with women, so the team profiles a pair: a woman who lures and binds them and a man, meek except with her, who rapes and kills them. A third student, Carl Cade, dies at another hotel; he was last seen leaving a party with a dark-haired woman wearing a green dress.
Garcia finds video of Browder grabbing an employee, Madison Cooke, and Adam stepping in, getting knocked down and then attacking in a rage; Julie had told staff to hide the fight. Adam’s mother was abused and died when he was 5, and his stepfather, Mark Harrison, then abused him. Julie, who met him as a college volunteer at his foster facility, pays his bills and has bailed him out twice, so the team suspects she is the dominant partner. Both pass polygraphs, but Reid suspects Adam’s wrong answer to a math question was a lie by someone who knew the answer and knew Adam would not. The team concludes Adam has dissociative identity disorder: the killing team is one man and an alter. Julie confronts Adam with something she found hidden in his closet, and he attacks her as “Amanda,” leaving her badly hurt. Amanda then goes after Harrison in Corpus Christi.
The Team
Reid is troubled that they arrested the victim while his abuser goes free. He compares Adam to Tobias Hankel, whose alter tortured him while, he insists, the real Tobias saved his life, and he is told they cannot save everyone.
The ending
Spoiler: Amanda holds a knife on Harrison, who dressed Adam in girls’ clothes, beat him and molested him after his mother died; she says she has protected Adam ever since. Amanda ends up in custody and Harrison goes free, but Adam no longer responds. In the institution, Reid keeps visiting, waiting for Adam to return.
Why it stands out
- Jackson Rathbone guest-stars as Adam Jackson, a killer with a female alter ego, Amanda, with Susan Ward as hotel manager Julie Riley and Roma Maffia as Detective Reese Evans.
- The episode is directed by Jason Alexander, who played the unsub Henry Grace earlier in the season in “Masterpiece.”
- Roma Maffia earlier played forensic pathologist Grace Alvarez on Profiler, another series about criminal profiling.