Last night on Criminal Minds Season 10 Episode 13, the BAU took another look at one of Gideon and Rossi’s original cases, with shocking results.
What could have been a run-of-the-mill flashback episode turned into something much greater in regards to the CBS show’s lore. Spoilers ahead …
On Criminal Minds Season 10 Episode 13, we flashed back to the dawn of the BAU, but only after a shocking death took place in the present.
More than seven years after Gideon (Mandy Patinkin) left the team, he was killed on Wednesday’s episode, in its opening minutes no less.
Reid, along with Gideon’s never before seen son Stephen (James Lentzsch) came together at Gideon’s cabin, where someone had shot him dead.
Before Gideon died, he managed to fire off one shot at one of his framed bird paintings, which Rossi interpreted as a clue, and for good reason.
Flashing back to 1978, a young Gideon (Ben Savage) and Rossi (Robert Dunne) had to let a lot of cases drop because of a lack of resources.
One of those especially bothered Gideon, or at least remained with him all of these years, and contributed to his ongoing fascination with birds.
The episode title, "Nelson’s Sparrow," was clever in that it pertains to the UnSub’s behavior, which you’ll see when you watch Criminal Minds online.
Three times in a few months, an UnSub left the body of a young woman in the Roanoke County woods, each with a dead bird in her hands.
The bird was a Nelson’s Sparrow, a species secretive by nature, and one which doesn’t listen to its own instinct to fly away when in danger.
Instead, it scurries away by foot, often to its detriment. The UnSub is picking out victims who, in a human way, exhibit this type of behavior.
Victims with low self esteem who prefer not to make a scene but up little or no resistance, and give the killer his M.O. But the trail had gone cold.
Until now. At last, a fourth victim – a fiftysomething woman named Tara Barnett whose photo Gideon had carried with him since 1978 – was found.
She was found in the very same woods just one week before – no bird in hand this time – which provoked Gideon to launch his own investigation.
The team ultimately exposes the UnSub as Donnie Mallick (Arye Gross), who had kept Tara captive in his bird lair until her death from cancer.
His wheelchair-bound ornithologist aunt had raised him, and she became his substitute, all of these years, with her limbs snapped. Grisly stuff.
Rossi, whose middle name is Stephen, as we learn from the flashbacks, appropriately avenges Gideon’s death to close out the shocking episode.
Why did Gideon have to die? Why bring him back now and not kill him in Season 3? Where will the team go from here in light of these events?
Hit the comments below with your theories and tell us what you thought of this outstanding, unexpected and sure to be talked about installment.