'Criminal Minds' Season 10: Episode 21 Recap 'Mr. Scratch'
This week on "Criminal Minds," three people implicated in murders claim they were attacked by a clawed shadow monster at the moment each crime occurred, and the BAU searches for an UnSub who is controlling their minds.
Larry is in an interrogation room for the murder of his wife. He says he's innocent and that a monster with talons for hands killed her. He said that upon hearing a noise downstairs, his wife went to check it out. Upon following her, he smells sage and falls to the floor. He says that he saw the monster and heard his wife's screams as it killed her.
But that's not what really happened as he is the one who stabbed his wife to death, and the police found him still clutching the knife. Incidentally, two others, Christine and Daniel, have told similar stories and Hotch thinks that someone induced a psychotic break on all three.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The two's stories are slightly different as Daniel claims that the monster raped him, but when the police ran a rape kit, they found no evidence of rape. Meanwhile, Christine has started tapping her head after telling the police about her attack and hasn't said a word since then.
Garcia finds out that all three were adopted in 1985. They would have been three or four when they were adopted.
In Larry's home, Rossi and Reid find plastic tubing inside a vent, and it tests positive for powerful disassociative drugs, which in high doses, can make a victim susceptible to suggestion.
Later, Christine comes in, and Hotch lights some sage and asks her questions. She remembers that when she was four, home was a scary place for her. The lights start flickering in the building, and Christine says that Mr. Scratch is coming and that "he's already here."
Hotch goes to Axelrod, and he gives the name of the UnSub: Peter Lewis. Peter's family ran a foster home, and one of the boys says that Peter's father used to dress up as the devil and was later killed in jail for being a pedophile. The team finds out that Peter is after Dr. Susannah Regan, one of the people who started a movement to encourage police to believe what children are saying.
Hotch gets to Susannah's house first. He sees her stab herself, and Peter, who's also there drugs him and tells him to do what he says.
Hotch tells him that he knows Susannah used sage during her sessions and that she made the children believe that they were really being abused by Peter's father.
"I know how those interviews worked, how coercive they were," Hotch tells Peter. "She questioned you about your father, and she wouldn't stop until she got the answers she wanted, so you gave them to her."
Hotch then sees the team entering the house, then watches as Reid gets shot, then Rossi gets hit, and Morgan gets shot too. Hotch doesn't know that he's hallucinating, and now Peter knows what he's most afraid of.
The team arrives for real now, and Peter says that he's about to come in and that Hotch should shoot him before he kills him. Hotch says he needs his gun, so Peter throws it to him. Rossi and Reid enter, and Hotch shoots at Peter, who gets away. Morgan and JJ find him upstairs, and oddly enough, he declares that he has won.
As Peter enters the squad car, he grins at Hotch and taps his head. Rossi encourages Hotch to talk about what happened, and Hotch takes a moment to compose himself before he says, "This is what happened."
"Criminal Minds" airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBS.
