Retaliation (Season 5, Episode 11)
Premise: A paroled bank robber escapes custody with an unlikely accomplice, and the BAU must learn what hold he has over the man before more people die.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 11
- Unsub
- Dale Schrader (Lee Tergesen)
- Location
- Lockport, New York
- 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
- “Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.” (Tacitus, read by Prentiss)
- Closing quote
- “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love.” (Washington Irving, read by Prentiss)
- Guest stars
- Tim Guinee as Joe Muller, A Martinez as Bunting, Reamy Hall as Molly Muller, Leslie Stevens as Karen Otey, Jan Hoag as Betts
- Director
- Félix Enríquez Alcalá
- Writers
- Erica Messer
Summary
The Case
“Retaliation” opens in the woods outside Lockport, New York, as agents arrest Dale Schrader, a bank robber freed after 11 years, for stabbing a woman named Stacy Ryan and abducting his daughter, Jenny, from his ex-wife. Prentiss and a local officer, Bunting, drive him to the station. On the way Schrader fakes being sick, a big truck slams into the car, and Schrader chokes Bunting to death. A second man then stops him from killing the injured Prentiss, and the two escape. The team has to admit it never profiled a partner and badly misjudged its man.
Prentiss leaves the hospital against advice. Garcia learns that most of the loot from Schrader’s 15 bank jobs in the 1990s was never found, and that another robber, Dan Otey, struck a deal just before Schrader was caught. Before the agents get there, Schrader shoots Otey at home while his partner herds Otey’s wife, Karen, and young son upstairs and locks them in a room. A cognitive interview brings back what Prentiss saw after the crash: the partner was upset that Bunting had died and kept telling her to press on her wound. The team decides he is a decent man acting under pressure. He is Joe Muller, a former officer who worked undercover as Joey Short, a witness in Schrader’s old case, and helped put him away; Schrader has seized his wife, Molly, and their two children and will reveal where they are only if Muller fetches the hidden money. Garcia finds his academy photo, and Muller visits an old colleague, Betts, at the station just before the agents arrive.
The team stops Muller and Schrader on the way to the Hillcrest bank. Schrader holds a gun on Muller and taunts Prentiss over Bunting, and she shoots him dead. Muller rages that the only man who knew where his family is has been killed. He then recalls that Stacy Ryan had demanded more money for people helping Schrader, and that Schrader killed her in the truck to silence her.
The ending
Spoiler: Muller leads the agents to an abandoned building south of Van Wyck taken over by drug users. Agents including Morgan and Rossi search it and find Molly and both children alive. Later Hotch thanks the colleague who led the team in his absence. That colleague, who grew up with a single parent, tells him he belongs in the field because his son sees him as the one who catches bad guys, and offers to take work off his hands so he can be home at bedtime.
Why it stands out
- Lee Tergesen guest-stars as Dale Schrader, with Tim Guinee as Joe Muller, the former undercover officer he coerces.
- A Martinez, who plays Bunting, had played FBI agent Nick Cooper in nine episodes of Profiler, another series about criminal profiling.