The Performer (Season 5, Episode 7)
Premise: When young women in Los Angeles are found drained of blood, the BAU’s trail leads to a goth rock star whose fans worship his vampire persona.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 7
- Unsub
- Ray Campion (Eddie Jemison), Gina King (Inbar Lavi)
- Location
- Los Angeles, California
- 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
- “In the darkest pages of the malign supernatural, there is no more terrible tradition than that of the vampire, a pariah even among demons.” (Montague Summers, read by Reid)
- Closing quote
- “Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.” (Cyril Connolly, read by Prentiss)
- Guest stars
- Gavin Rossdale as Paul “Dante” Davies, Ian Anthony Dale as Lt. Detective Owen Kim, Tonya Kay as Tara Farris, Netta Most as Erin Hickman, Ashleigh Sumner as Marcia Masters
- Director
- John Badham
- Writers
- Holly Harold
Summary
The Case
“The Performer” opens as fans leave a Los Angeles concert by Dante, a goth rock singer with a vampire stage act, and a knock at a door ends in an attack. Tara Farris, 20, becomes the third young woman in two weeks left beside a freeway off-ramp, strangled and almost emptied of blood, with saliva on throat wounds that resemble fang marks and “the liar” written on her. Reid describes clinical vampirism, also called Renfield’s syndrome, and the team rejoins Lieutenant Owen Kim, whom they know from an earlier stalker case. The medical examiner finds the wounds were made by a sharp boring tool, not teeth.
Dante is the stage name of Paul Davies, a weary performer whose manager, Ray Campion, pushes him to keep playing the character as sales slide. At a party for his new album, Davies leaves with a caterer, Erin Hickman, who is found dead the next morning with the same words on her. Reid’s profile describes a self-cutting schizophrenic with a past of killing animals, living in a run-down house with an older female relative. Garcia learns that Tara and the first two victims worshipped Dante and that his album, released that day, is titled The Liar. Prentiss spots Erin’s car at Davies’s mansion, and he is led in past a mob of reporters. He cannot remember the night, his record sales soar on the news, and the saliva DNA turns out to be a woman’s.
JJ goes alone to see Tara’s friend Gina King, who lives with her grandmother, while Reid learns of Gina’s fan letters vowing to kill for Dante. Allowed a call, Davies hears Ray boast that he fixed the sales and that nothing ties Davies to it. Ray then urges Gina to kill JJ, promising she can join Dante among the undead. Gina attacks JJ, but the team arrives and Rossi orders her to show her hands. Ray is taken into custody, and Davies learns his manager used a disturbed fan to sell records.
The Team
Morgan is still acting unit chief, which the team tells Kim is a long story. JJ teases Reid about Lila Archer, the actress from the stalker case, and he steers the talk back to work.
The ending
Spoiler: Davies offers to help both Ray and Gina. Afterward JJ says she is only sore, and Reid is told no one could have foreseen the danger. The talk turns to musical obsessions, from Rossi’s youthful love of the Rat Pack to Hotch’s favorite, the Beatles’ White Album.
Why it stands out
- Gavin Rossdale guest-stars as Paul “Dante” Davies; Jon Bon Jovi was originally slated for the role.
- Steffan Fantini, a co-writer of the series’ theme and much of its music, appears on screen as the keyboardist and singer in Dante’s band.
- Rossi’s Rat Pack remark nods to Joe Mantegna’s own past: he played Dean Martin in the 1998 film The Rat Pack.