100 (Season 5, Episode 9)
Premise: In the 100th episode, an inquiry into the BAU’s hunt for George Foyet retraces how the Reaper found Hotch’s family in hiding and how the chase ended.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 5, Episode 9
- Unsub
- George Foyet, “The Reaper” (C. Thomas Howell)
- Location
- Arlington, Virginia
- 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), Erin Strauss (Jayne Atkinson), Haley Hotchner (Meredith Monroe), Jack Hotchner (Cade Owens), William “Will” LaMontagne Jr. (Josh Stewart), Kevin Lynch (Nicholas Brendon)
- Opening quote
- “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” (Friedrich Nietzsche, read by Hotch)
- Closing quote
- “So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family, that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.” (Haniel Long, read by Hotch)
- Guest stars
- D.B. Sweeney as U.S. Marshal Kassmeyer, Brian Appel as Agent Anderson, Gina Garcia-Sharp as Evidence Tech Gina, Ariana Thomas as Pharmacist, Zokai Holmes as Super
- Director
- Edward Allen Bernero
- Writers
- Bo Crese
Summary
The Case
“100” is framed by an inquiry in which Strauss questions each member of the team about the hunt for George Foyet, the Reaper. In flashbacks, the clippings Foyet mailed to Karl Arnold carry postmarks from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Westminster, Maryland. A pharmacist’s remark leads JJ to suspect Foyet is masking his prescriptions with over-the-counter drugs, so Garcia and Kevin Lynch narrow the search to a thyroid drug with no substitute, needed because of his self-inflicted stab wounds. An anagram of “the reaper” points to a patient named Peter Rhea in Arlington. The team waits until an agent posing as a building superintendent finds the apartment empty. An online alert on the alias had warned Foyet, and his wiped laptop holds surveillance photos of U.S. Marshal Sam Kassmeyer, who protects Haley and Jack.
The agents find Kassmeyer shot and maimed. He told Foyet nothing under torture, but Foyet dialed numbers on his phone until he reached Haley, posed as a marshal, said Kassmeyer and Hotch were dead and had her buy a disposable phone. Kassmeyer dies in the ambulance with Hotch beside him. Hotch calls Foyet, who taunts him with details about Haley and Jack, and the team works out that Foyet has taken them to the house the family once shared. On the phone, Hotch has Haley tell Jack to “work the case,” a signal that sends the boy off to hide, and Haley asks Hotch to tell Jack how they met. Three shots follow, and Haley is killed. Hotch arrives, fights Foyet and beats him to death before teammates pull him away.
The Team
Strauss presses each agent to say Hotch acted recklessly, and none will: Reid cites his eidetic memory, and Rossi briefly switches off her recorder to ask what the inquiry can achieve. Hotch explains that he stepped down partly so Foyet would think he was falling apart. At a pharmacy with Will and baby Henry, JJ admits she cannot imagine being in Hotch’s place, and Garcia insists that Kevin stay to speed up her search.
The ending
Spoiler: Jack comes out of hiding unharmed, and JJ takes him outside. Haley died quickly from a wound that severed her aorta. Asked at the inquiry what would have happened had Foyet gotten up, Hotch answers that Foyet would have tried to kill Jack too, and he is offered condolences.
Why it stands out
- This is the 100th episode of the series.
- The credited writer, “Bo Crese,” is a pseudonym built from the initials of the seven writers who worked on the script, including Edward Allen Bernero, who also directed.
- Hotch’s opening Nietzsche quotation was also used in the pilot, “Extreme Aggressor.”