Memoriam (Season 4, Episode 7)
Premise: Reid stays in Las Vegas to learn whether his father murdered a neighborhood boy two decades ago, as JJ’s baby arrives early back home.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 4, Episode 7
- Unsub
- Gary Brendan Michaels (Andrew Harlander), Lou Jenkins (Brian Goodman)
- 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), Jordan Todd (Meta Golding), Diana Reid (Jane Lynch), William “Will” LaMontagne Jr. (Josh Stewart)
- Opening quote
- “What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, read by Reid)
- Closing quote
- “There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.” (Gilbert Parker, read by Reid)
- Guest stars
- Taylor Nichols as William Reid, Xander Berkeley as Det. Hyde, Dee Wallace as Dr. Jan Mohikian, Bruce French as Dr. Norman
- Director
- Guy Norman Bee
- Writers
- Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Summary
The Case
“Memoriam” keeps Reid in Las Vegas after the case closes. He tells the team he wants time with his mother, but he is really reopening the decades-old murder of Riley Jenkins, a six-year-old stabbed in his family’s basement. When Rossi and Morgan let themselves into his hotel room, Reid admits his suspect is his own father, William, whom he has not seen in 20 years. Diana recalls that William coached Spencer’s Little League team, and Riley was on it, while Riley’s father, Lou Jenkins, calls William a good man. Confronted at his firm in nearby Summerlin, William demands a warrant, so Garcia hacks his computers. She finds no sign of interest in children, just a lonely workaholic who has saved everything ever published about Spencer, down to his dissertation.
An envelope left in Reid’s room points to Gary Brendan Michaels, a man with an indecent exposure record who dropped out of sight after Riley died. Under hypnosis with Dr. Jan Mohikian, Reid recalls his parents fighting at night and comes to believe he saw his father burning bloody clothes. Diana breaks down and tells him it could have been him. Det. Hyde reluctantly holds William, who denies killing Riley but says Michaels did. Michaels’ remains, unearthed years earlier near Barker Ranch, Charles Manson’s old California hideout, show he was beaten, perhaps with a bat. Over objections, Reid has a print from Michaels’ broken glasses run, and it matches Lou Jenkins. Reid also works out that Hyde, Lou’s friend, slipped him the Michaels file, since Hyde knew which hotel the agents used.
Lou claims he acted alone. Then Diana, who has put off her medication to think clearly, says she was the one who saw Michaels watching young Spencer at ball games and the park, and she pointed him out to Lou. She remembers walking toward the house where Lou had him and little after that. William explains that she came home unable to speak, that he burned her bloody clothes to shield her, and that the secret drove him from the family. Reid apologizes for suspecting him.
The Team
At Quantico, Jordan Todd returns to shadow JJ before her maternity leave and learns how JJ chooses which cases come first. JJ hides her contractions, saying Reid needs the team, until she is told she is in labor three weeks early, and Todd takes over on the spot.
The ending
Spoiler: At the hospital after 15 hours of labor, JJ and Will welcome their son, Henry. When Reid arrives, JJ asks him to be Henry’s godfather, and he holds the baby while the talk turns to which college Henry will attend.
Why it stands out
- Taylor Nichols guest-stars as Reid’s father, William, and Dee Wallace plays hypnotherapist Dr. Jan Mohikian.
- Rossi and Morgan are caught watching The Young and the Restless, a nod to Shemar Moore’s 154 episodes as Malcolm Winters on that soap.
- Reid’s thesis is titled “Identifying Non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression,” from Caltech’s Department of Engineering.