The Instincts (Season 4, Episode 6)
Premise: A woman in the grip of psychosis abducts young boys in Las Vegas, while Reid’s recurring nightmares point to a child murder from his own past.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 6
- Unsub
- Claire Bates (Melinda Page Hamilton)
- Location
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- 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), Diana Reid (Jane Lynch)
- Opening quote
- “Who speaks to the instincts speaks to the deepest in mankind, and finds the readiest response.” (Amos Bronson Alcott, read by Hotch)
- Closing quote
- “I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.” (Bob Dylan, read by Reid)
- Guest stars
- Kari Matchett as Amy Bridges, Reed Diamond as Craig Bridges, Bruce French as Dr. Norman, Brad Heller as Walter Davis, Shashawnee Hall as Det. Ashby
- Director
- Rob Spera
- Writers
- Chris Mundy
Summary
The Case
“The Instincts” brings the BAU to Las Vegas, Nevada. Five-year-old Ethan Hayes was taken from his yard and found smothered in the desert a week later, freshly dressed and groomed. Now Michael Bridges, also five, has vanished on a solo walk to a friend’s house. The kidnapper phones each family to blame the parents, with no ransom demand. Ethan was starved, yet something nourished him, which baffles the medical examiner. Since the body was laid out as if for burial, the team has the detective ask Ethan’s family to open his funeral to the public.
At the service, Walter Davis is caught filming the mourners; he proves to be a sex offender, not the kidnapper. The caller then rings the Bridges home, angry that the FBI seized the wrong person, and tells Hotch how she loved Ethan. Reid argues the unsub is a woman, and her talk of being “locked down” suggests a psychiatric hospital. Dr. Norman, at Diana Reid’s hospital, finds no match among recent releases. Then Diana mentions stopping her medication while pregnant with Reid, and he realizes the woman may think each boy is her newborn and be breastfeeding him.
A blonde mourner is identified as Claire Bates, committed three years earlier for biting off part of a co-worker’s ear. Social services took her newborn son after a seven-day evaluation, matching the week she keeps each boy. Cornered at her house, she carries Michael toward a fire in the garage, insisting her baby is dead. Rossi asks about a clean shot; Michael is rescued and returned to his parents, but Claire’s fate is not spelled out.
The Team
Reid dreams of a dead boy in a basement, a dream he has had since childhood, and on the overnight watch he wakes the Bridges household screaming until Morgan rouses him. A teammate brings him the file on Riley Jenkins, a six-year-old sexually abused and stabbed in Las Vegas when Reid was about four; Reid once had an imaginary friend named Riley. Diana calls Riley a story he made up, but Reid recalls a funeral, a house move and his mother telling his father he was in danger.
The ending
Spoiler: Afterward a teammate suggests, citing Jung, that the old case steered Reid into this career. Reid asks Hotch for one more night in Las Vegas, and Diana, proud of him for saving the boy, lets him sleep on the couch in her room. A final scene has an FBI order to show a face, then the word “Dad?”
Why it stands out
- Melinda Page Hamilton guest-stars as Claire Bates, the child abductor.
- Riley Jenkins’ murder carries into the next episode, “Memoriam,” in which Taylor Nichols plays Reid’s father, William.
- Prentiss’s complaint at the desert dump site, that crime scene investigators want to play cop instead of sticking to science, is read as a jab at CBS’s own CSI.