By: Mariah Thomas
We begin two weeks after Will’s (Josh Stewart) funeral. The team sits around the iconic roundtable and breaks down the current case. Women of color have been found with missing areas of skin. This leads the team to believe they are looking for an unsub with medical experience. Emily (Paget Brewster) tells Tara (Aisha Tyler) and Rossi (Joe Mantegna) she needs them to stay behind and work with Voit (Zach Gilford). She plans to take Tyler (RJ Hatanaka) and Luke (Adam Rodriquez) with her on this new case. As she says the first “wheels up” of the season, Emily notices JJ (AJ Cook) in the bullpen. She is supposed to be on leave as she continues to grieve and be there for her kids in this devastating time.
The team approaches and goes to check in on her. She is met with an array of love and hugs. She expresses her gratitude and reveals her reasoning for coming in is to talk with Rossi and Prentiss. She shows them a video that had just been uploaded to BAU-gate, despite it being shut down. When Prentiss suggests which departments to share this with, JJ reveals she already showed them with no luck for a solution. Concerned, they press her for how she found this video in the first place. JJ confesses she has been obsessively checking the BAU-gate site out of fear it would be reactivated. Her boys have gone back to school and her mother as well as Will’s mother have been taking care of everything else. This leaves JJ to do nothing but sit in grief and it is clear she is not ready to begin processing that. Sensing the change in mood of the conversation, Rossi leaves Emily and JJ to talk alone. Referring to their conversation last season, Prentiss struggles with wanting to send JJ home to protect her and the truth. The truth being the mess involved with uncovering this case. Knowing how much she is hurting, Emily allows her to work the case lightly with Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) to help distract her on one condition. The condition being that if things get too overwhelming, she prioritizes herself.
On the jet, Prentiss, Luke and Tyler continue to discuss the case. They throw around more theories and discuss new angles for who this unsub could be. Meanwhile, we get a new glimpse from the unsub’s point of view. An ambulance driver named Brad (Alexander Bedria) stalks the streets late at night. He looks for unhoused women and claims to want to provide medical help they may need. Loading them into the ambulance, the women quickly learn of his true sinister nature when they are drugged. He is working with Dr. Ramsey (Derek Webster). He brings them to an abandoned mortuary set up to be an operating and recovery center. It is revealed the doctor’s daughter, Ariel (Tayler Buck) is in need of a skin transplant as she is covered in third degree burns. She is unaware of what is actually going on as she is quarantined away from everything as she also has an autoimmune disease. She longs to go home but her father promises her just one more surgery.
When Prentiss, Tyler and Luke land, another body is discovered. They confirm there has to be two unsubs involved and race plays an important element in how these women are targeted. Back at the hospital, Voit has an extreme nightmare about someone in a white mask drilling into his head. He wakes up in a panic and Dr Ochoa (Aimee Garcia) rushes in. When he complains of a migraine she lets him know she can’t give him more of the medicine he’s been taking. He then requests to see Lewis and Rossi. Meanwhile at the BAU, Garcia and JJ comb through the FBI’s database for masks. In the video JJ found, a masked figure is in a home and stalking a young girl. As they sort through these images, Garcia attempts to check in with JJ as she hyper fixates on finding this mask. She is honest with her feelings and claims to be fine. After a beat of comfortable silence, JJ thanks Garcia for being the best to which Garcia says “I know.” JJ clarifies she meant the best friend and hugs her.
Voit grapples with remembering bits and pieces of who he is. Though he doesn’t remember exactly, he can assume he isn’t a good person and struggles with that. In an attempt to feel a wave of starting over, he shaves his head. While Rossi and Voit talk, Tara attempts to get Dr. Ochoa on board with an inkblot test that should help Voit recover more bits of his memory and dreams. While the test is being administered, he is shown a photo of the mask in the BAU-gate video. He eventually thinks about his earlier nightmare and the masked figure is replaced with Rossi. He grows concerned that it is a memory and not a nightmare so wants Rossi removed.
The most unexpected duo of the season, Luke and Tyler tag team style integrate the owner of a warehouse who seems to be in the black market for selling organs. Metal shavings on their latest victim match ones found there. Through him, they get more information on the ambulance driver they are searching for. Back in the unsub’s POV, the doctor must reveal to his daughter that this skin graft was not successful. She pleads with him to let her go. She misses her bed, being able to see the stars at night and her mom. He promises “just one more surgery”. Their conversation is interrupted as his partner calls for him in a panic. He reveals to him that the FBI was at his old apartment and wants to lay low. Dr. Ramsey refuses and tells him he needs one more woman. When he offers to pay triple what he usually does, Brad agrees.
Voit and Rossi come to an understanding about the falsehood of his memory of Rossi trying to kill him. They resume the inkblot test with Dr Ochoa leading. Voit’s memory is triggered. He remembers killing someone and the feeling of enjoying it. This leaves him confused and slowly realizing who he really is. He grows quiet and leaves the room to have a moment to process.
Back on the case, Emily, Luke and Tyler discover Brad’s body confirming Dr. Ramsey killed him for being a loose end. By knowing his identity finally, they are able to find out about Dr. Ramsey. It is revealed he was in a horrific car accident with his wife and daughter. This left his wife dead and daughter covered in burns. Ariel ventures out of the tent she is being quarantined in and searches for answers. She sees how abandoned the place she is in is after being told by her father she was in the hospital. She finds a woman strapped down to a morgue slab and pieces together what has been happening. Her father walks in and is upset she left when he told her not to. It is clear her father’s mental state is deluded as she pleads with him to let the woman go and try to show him how scared she is. He views her as nothing more than skin for Ariel. Prentiss, Luke and Tyler bust in just in time with a heavy police force. They attempt to reason with Dr. Ramsey who is too far in his delusion to listen to them. In order to stop him from hurting the woman, Ariel stabs him in the neck with a scalpel. The BAU looked shocked as they slowly move in to check his pulse. Ariel grows weak and asks Tyler for a favor. She can feel her body giving out and requests he take her outside so she can die looking up at the stars.
Back on the jet Tyler and Prentiss share a beautiful heart to heart. Tyler is shaken by the case but Prentiss reminds him there was no “right” thing to do here. She tells him this job is about loss. Whenever they are working a case, they are actively looking into loss and seeing people on the worst day of their lives as they’ve lost a loved one. She tells him to really reflect and ask himself if he can live with the loss, because if he can- he’s earned his spot on the team. When he says he can, she sits back with a smirk and says, “I know.”
JJ continues to obsessively watch the BAU-gate video to search for a deeper meaning. Garcia watches with concern as something tense clearly begins to bubble out of JJ. The entire episode she has been a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. In her mind, she pieces together that the man in the video is Voit. She angrily storms off to the hospital to talk to him. When she’s told by Dr Ochoa she isn’t able to see him, she storms in the room. They discover Voit is unconscious and may have been hoarding pills to overdose on. As Dr Ochoa runs to get help, JJ grabs Voit and shakes him conscious. She angrily gets right in his face and asks if he remembers her. He is the source of creating the deep fake videos of JJ discovered last season. She reminds him that he is stuck with her and is not allowed to die. As Tara pulls JJ off of him so the doctors can work, JJ watches with a glint of sinister happiness in her eyes as she sees Voit in pain. Tara watches JJ with a glint of concerned acceptance. When she checks in with her, the final shot is cut off midway by JJ saying she is fine.