By: Mariah Thomas
A daytime setting shows a man taking a sip of coffee before gliding a sledge hammer against hardwood floors. His destination reveals a tied up couple, Mary (Michelle Krusiec) and Charles (Matthew Pohlkamp) Tolson. They attempt to plead with this mystery man for their lives. The unsub taunts them and reveals he doesn’t want money, he wants a confession. Charles apologies for being responsible for budget cuts at work that led to many losing their jobs. However, the unsub is after a confession of cheating. Once he gets it, he kills Mary.
At the BAU Tara (Aisha Tyer) and Emily (Paget Brewster) discuss the letters Voit previously received. His “fan” was not happy being called pathetic on the podcast and the BAU are aware they need to take this matter seriously. Voit (Zach Gilford) also thinks this is something to make a high priority. They were able to track down where the messages were sent from, so Tara heads out to further investigate.
JJ (A,J. Cook) copes with being a singular parent. She jokes to Luke (Adam Rodriguez) she is being ghosted about her son. He was yet to reply to her texts checking in. Luke accidentally lets it slip that Henry (Mehkai Anderson) intends to stay local for college. Though he confided in Luke, he has not spoken to his mother about it. This conversation is cut short by Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) calling the team in to go over a case. She gives the team the rundown on the murder that took place in the intro. The team points out how risky of a kill this is and piece together another victim. Garcia jokes that all men need to go to therapy. The BAU points out the unsub spares the children from even seeing the crime, so it could point to his own trauma. Prentiss, Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and Tyler (RJ Hatanaka) head to Colorado to investigate. Luke and JJ are tasked to stay behind and help Tara with Voit.
In the prison, Tara and Voit discuss the letters he was sent. Voit is able to provide his insight for the BAU to determine if this person has killed anybody yet. Voit realizes the chaos unleashing now is solely due to his words on Garrity’s podcast.
Tyler and Rossi investigate the current crime scene while Prentiss stays at the local station to speak to the living spouse. Rossi encourages Tyler to speak his theories instead of keeping them to himself out of fear they won’t make sense. Rossi is able to help shape this theory into a profile. Prentiss speaks with Charles about Mary’s death. The biggest piece of information she gets out of him is a strange necklace the unsub wore. It was a necklace with a vial of a white substance. Prentiss calls Rossi and Tyler to have them look for a white, crystal like substance at the scene. Tyler locates salt in the corners of the room. In the briefing Prentiss points out that this lines up with being a ritual. She also points out the hyper focus on women and how these seem like witch hunts.
This transitions to the unsub taunting a new couple. Tawny Blair (Amy Hathaway) taunts the unsub and yells at him to “kill this witch”. This provokes him to turn and kill her husband instead. The unsub smiles at her pain.
Tara brings JJ and Luke in to tell them they were able to intercept another message from Voit’s fan. No words this time, only photos from an unidentified woman. Luke is able to recognize the type of tree in a photo and JJ is able to pinpoint the main location for these trees. This helps them narrow down where to search for this potential victim.
Rossi sits with now widowed Tawny to get her statement. She feels awful and blames herself for baiting the unsub. She reveals she knew of these attacks and thought she could distract him and save her husband. Previously, the unsub only killed the women of families. Tawny is adamant the couple had no secrets between them. Rossi directly asks if her husband was having an affair and she cracks. Rossi accidentally ruffles some feathers and sends the woman into an emotional spiral.
Prentiss and Tyler continue to build a profile. The theory of direct witchcraft is thrown out when they become more certain on the unsub targeting adultery. Prentiss points out in medieval times, the act of adultery was enough to consider someone a witch. Prentiss rings in “good witch” Garcia to have her further look into a new theory. Prentiss tasks her to look at the patterns of the couple’s financial habits. Garcia is able to uncover specific purchases that lead to cheating. Prentiss has her cross reference those findings with all other victims. Rossi was able to find the witch book the unsub uses to build his mindset from. He appears to use the text as a bible. The book translates to “Hammer of Witches”. Rossi says he took time to study the occult with Gideon during the Satanic Panic of the 80s.
The team is finally able to build their profile. They can deduce he is a part time worker or independent contract worker. Through his work, he has a close connection to the spouses he intends to target. This is how he is able to uncover the transgressions in the marriage. He sets out to punish, which raises the stakes to find him sooner.
Voit and Tara further discuss the photos sent to him. Voit points out that the woman is most likely okay. If he wanted to prove he killed her, he would have sent photos of her body. Therefore, by being alive, he is simply taunting Voit with what could be. He is doing this to show Voit he is not “pathetic”. Through DMV records, the bau was able to confirm the woman to be Laura Boyd (Jessi Case). She had deleted her social media accounts a month prior, which points to someone stalking her. Laura was put into protective custody and brought to the Quantico offices. At first she is hesitant and upset since no one would tell her why she was needed. JJ and Luke show her the photos and she identifies them as taken by her ex-boyfriend, Lance (Connor Storrie). She describes him as a complete stalker who gave her the ick. He never got violent, he just couldn’t let go. She previously had to call the police on him.
Prentiss, Rossi and Tyler continue to throw around theories. They note it is telling that all couples have children but not even the kids know each other. They are struggling to find any connection between these couples. Tyler points out one of the kids got off to a late start, and still didn’t see what happened. So, it’s clear the unsub knows the children’s schedule ahead of time. Tyler theorizes the unsub has a relationship to the kids, not the parents. Prentiss points out they need to quickly figure out who he is as he most likely will strike again the next morning.
The following morning Delores (Gillian White) and Brenton (Inny Clemons) Woodrow send their daughter off to school. The second she leaves, it’s clear there is tension between the couple but they are trying to work things out. Once Brenton goes upstairs, the unsub comes out from hiding and holds a gun to the wife’s head.
Tara watches as JJ interviews Lance. When Lance claims he’s done nothing wrong, JJ reveals the background check she did. He had a small record following him. Lance is currently job hunting and JJ jokes his future employers would be very interested in seeing this. Lance slaps the file out of JJ’s hand and she keeps her composure. She is well adapted in these moments to not let any suspects get to her. She simply says she can see why Laura broke up with him. She asks more direct questions about Voit. Tara goes in and has Lance sign something confirming he came in on his accord. She intentionally gave him a defective pen to see his reaction. The Voit fan is a perfectionist while Lance doesn’t even flinch when the ink spills on the paper. They are able to determine Lance isn’t the fan who sent Voit the photos and instead being set up. In order to hopefully keep Lance away from Laura, the ladies send Luke in to scare him a little. Luke quickly reminds him that for his own safety, he needs to be careful. It’s clear someone out there is trying to set him up and he himself may even be the target.
With the help of Garica, the team in Colorado is able to figure out that the unsub’s name is Sean Fincher (Dash Mihok) and he is a substitute teacher. They confirm he taught in classes all taken by the kids of the couples. They theorize he made himself a safe space for the kids to open up about home troubles. As Delores and Brenton plead for their lives, the BAU shows up just in time. Tyler has to make a quick choice and shoot Fincher as he shows no sign in being scared by the presence of the FBI. When Tyer feels the weight of this later, Prentiss and Rossi both step into a mentor role to talk things out with him as they both have been in the same shoes. They remind him, if he hadn’t shot the unsub, the unsub would have killed one of the parents.
JJ reconvenes with Luke to finish their conversation from this morning. After having time to think it over, she isn’t upset with Henry’s shift in college location. She admits she is grateful her boys have Luke to confide in. He and Garcia are their village. Back at Garcia’s apartment, JJ wakes up Henry to talk. In a sweet moment the mother and son duo share ice cream and talk about the future. Henry realizes Luke told her. His reasoning for wanting to be closer is how much change has happened in their family with the loss of Will (Josh Stewart). Henry wants to be closer to his mom to make sure she is okay. JJ assures him all she wants is for him to be happy and choose a college based on what he wants, not her.
The episode ends with Prentiss and Tara meeting with Voit once more to gain more insight. Voit points out all of this was most likely a ruse to keep the BAU busy from his real plans. Laura was never the target. Voit questions Lance’s whereabouts and the scene cuts to an unconscious Lance being put into a trunk by the fan.