Criminal Minds “To Hell and Back” Recap
David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and Aaron Hotchner (Thomas Gibson) in “To Hell and Back” (photo from Daemon’s TV)
The opening scene has a different feel than other CM episodes - a bit edgier. The unsub is cruising around a neighborhood with homeless people, prostitutes, and drug users. He gets to the border crossing into Canada. He’s allowed entrance and then drives into the guard post. He requests to see the FBI, saying he’s killed ten people.
The team is then discussing the case - they don’t know for sure that he’s killed the people. They can’t find any info on them because they were transient. Hightower, the self-confessed killer, was in the armed forces and lost his leg in Iraq.
Prentiss and Morgan comb through the streets in Detroit, while Hotch interrogates Hightower. Through his interview, we find out that Hightower crashed through the post - waiting until all the guards were out of the way - so he could draw the attention of the FBI. He isn’t the unsub - he wanted to ensure that the disappearances of the ten people were investigated. He routinely went through the downtown area in a Detroit neighborhood, doing a bed check type thing to make sure no one went missing. He was doing all this because his sister had left home and lived on the streets. He managed to take her home once, but she left two weeks later, and disappeared.
So now the team is on board, and we get the scene with the pig farmer. Good God, it’s like Hannibal. Very disturbing when he hits that guy with the hammer - after marking the spot with an X. He injects something into the victim (after some lovely shots of dead pigs). Rossi and Hotch ask the RCMP guy (whom Rossi trained) to release Hightower into their custody. Morgan and Prentiss are talking to the Detroit police about the case.
Garcia discovers that around each disappearance, there is a corresponding break-in at a medical supply company (IV supplies, etc.). The team believes the unsub tortures the victims, maybe performing experiments. He keeps them alive to torture them. As they were showing the clips of the unsub with the saw and then the pigs, I kept thinking, “Please don’t show the pigs eating that guy.” And sure enough, there they are chewing on an arm. I think that may be a bit too much for me - I think I found my limit with that.
Through talking to Hightower’s mother, the team figures out a connection to the cashing of welfare checks, around the first and fifteenth of the month. Morgan and the detective ask a street kid where they cash their checks. The unsub’s picked up another victim. He managed to evade the border crossing by hiding a boat and crossing over water.
Garcia’s magical powers give the team a likely crossing (based on Underground Railroad routes). They find a car, run the VIN, and get a name. Mason Turner. Garcia gets an address on him and they find out he has extensive medical education. They go to the house, Morgan and Prentiss finding medical supplies and lots of blood, and Hotch and Rossi finding Mason Turner in bed on a ventilator.
In talking to Rossi, Mason says his brother, Lucas, has done everything. He’s crazy, and he’ll kill you all if you don’t kill him first. Mason claims that Lucus paralyzed him and beat him when he tried to call for help. Rossi doesn’t believe that - he thinks Mason is involved, though obviously not physically. Mason has mirrors throughout his room so he can see what Lucas is doing. Meanwhile, Lucas is holding the victim, Kelly, in some hidden place. Lucas is obviously very agitated.
Garcia comes to Ontario to look at Mason’s computer, and the team is sorting through at least 100 pairs of shoes, presumably from the victims. Morgan finds William Hightower’s dog tags, which he’d given to his sister. Morgan tells Hotch that he has to leave - he can’t take it anymore. Reid finds drawings Lucas has done and says he doesn’t think Lucas is psychotic. When he’s with Kelly, he seems confused, scared, and even concerned about her. Kelly begins to try to connect with him, asking his name and saying they could be friends.
Garcia finds that they have been doing experiments on the victims (harvesting stem cells for spinal regeneration) - William hears Mason talking about it. Prentiss and Morgan are helping with a search. Kelly gets Lucas to go find some food, and once he’s gone, she tries to escape. She can’t, and he comes back with berries. Kelly is able to get outside and turn on the phone. This gives the team enough info to track her down. They get her out safely, but Lucas freaks out, and the police shoot him. Meanwhile, William finds a gun (really, who left their gun sitting around??) and shoots Mason.
At the end, the team returns home. Instead of a quote to tie up the show, Hotch says sometimes there are no words. He goes home, pours a drink, and feels a gun on him. “You should’ve made a deal,” a masked person says. And then we hear a shot.
That was not what I was expecting! I thought someone would get injured with the shooting of the brothers!
I’ll be back with my thoughts on the episode tomorrow. For now, I’m tired and going to bed. Eleven feels very late!
May 20th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Does Thomas Gibson have a renewed contract for next season???
May 20th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
In which past episode could they have made a deal and passed it up? I am confused!
May 20th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
the deal that was passed up was with the character c Thomas howell played he made a deal with police but when hotch and the gang investigated he wanted another deal but they said no by not putting the article he wanted in the paper
May 20th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Was the deal from the same episode? if not from which episode?
May 21st, 2009 at 2:02 am
thomas gibson already said he isn’t leaving so that really wasn’t a big cliffhanger since he will be back next season.
i just couldn’t get into this episode and to put it simply, thought it was one of their worst unfortunately stretched into two hrs with a not so surprising ending.
May 21st, 2009 at 7:14 am
Not a brilliant episode, but it was good. And the deal was made in episode 4×18, Omnivore. Remember the Boston Reaper? The escape?
May 21st, 2009 at 8:51 am
I found this ep really good. Suspense was really good. I found it a little jarring, because, as a Canadian, I’m familiar with a serial murderer, a pig farmer in BC, who is prison for killing several women. I found the episode just zipped along. I was watching it and at one point I looked at the clock and there was only 15 minutes left. The ending wasn’t a big surprise because I knew that C Thomas Howell’s character was still out there and I had read that the finale would be a cliffhanger. Either Hotch had a kevlar vest on, or the killer missed, or someone else was in the apartment, or who knows, like Elle in the Fisher King, he might actually be shot and injured.
Mason Turner was very frickin’ creepy. It was obvious that he was playing on his brother’s guilt to try and cure his own paralysis but I think it was just so someone else could suffer as much as he is. Why the mirrors then?
Lucas Turner was heartbreaking. He got such a shoddy deal out of life, with his physical and mental condition, then having his brother use him so coldly.
It was sad at the end though, that the whole team was so defeated like that. Almost like they believe that no matter what they do, nothing will help. No matter how many wackos they take off the street, there are more of them out there.
On a side note, I ended up dreaming about a farm last night. Kind of like Animal Farm: the pigs ran everything.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I tried to comment last night, but it did not go through and it was too late to type it all again.
I totally agree with your opinion in the recap that the female victim was great. She kept herself alive and that is what mattered. Plus, she was feisty!
I liked this ep a lot, but had to suspend my disbelief for an all time high in regards to CM.
Sigh, protocols which relate to reality were shot to hell on this one.
The semi autistic/semi mentally challenged Lukas was simply unbelievable, but in the magic of TV, he can drive a car, follow surgical instructions, kidnap and murder people, a lot a lot a lot of people and stay under the radar for years and years and still want to be friends and bring berries to the maiden. Nevertheless, he was compelling and the actor deserves many kudos, he was great and made me wonder if he had been the giant in his high school production of Jack and the Beanstalk.
This week, instead of Raiders of the Lost Arc and the hidden basement of diseases, we have Hannibal Lecter and the PIGS!!! EEEEEEEEEEEK!!!! The bro, Mason, was a real piece of work and perhaps the evilest unsub of them all. Because I mean, not only ordering mass murders, Mengle worthy experiments and watching the whole thing, he used his mentally unstable brother to act it all out for him. Evil!!!
The FBI and all its similar entities as well as the military: DO NOT LET CIVILIANS ON THE CRIME SCENES not ever. You knew the good brother was going to crack and kill Mason, but the rifle left leaning against the house was too much!!!
How much more depravity the writers can find to model stories on is questionable, I think they should do simpler, more realistic evil unsubs and keep the episodes tightly drawn.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:07 pm
please someone tell me what ep. was c thomas howell on and the part he played.
May 21st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
“Criminal Minds” …. George Foyet (1 episode, 2009)
- Omnivore (2009) TV episode …. George Foyet
all you ever have to do is put the name in google and follow the link to IMDB to see any actor/actress/director etc…
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:15 am
Something that I found interesting, although maybe it’s just a coincidence, but Reid referred to the pigs as “omnivores” since they eat anything, and then at the very end we have a character coming back from a previous episode, “Omnivore”.
That little tidbit aside, I have to comment on some really glaring geographical issues. Detroit and Port Huron aren’t that close - an hour or so away. Several times it sounds like the border crossing is Detroit/Windsor (Windsor never being mentioned) and then the Port Huron border crossing is mentioned. If they wanted to use Detroit as the big, bad American city, why not have the killer cross over into Canada into Windsor? I can’t understand why Port Huron was even mentioned.
Also, maybe I missed it, but why did the veteran (Tackaberry?) suspect that the killer was taking the victims into Canada in the first place?
I won’t even get into how impotent Canadian law enforcement was portrayed. I’m not an expert, but I can’t imagine the FBI would be able to do whatever it wanted - including interrogating suspects, directing operations, etc. - on Canadian soil.
But all in all a great episode.
Oh, and my guess for the shocking finale - Hotch is seriously wounded, maybe even in hospital for a few episodes, but is ultimately back to normal by Christmas.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I loved it!! My mom had told me someone was going to get “Killed” so I watched the whole thing waiting for that. I figured it would be JJ since the actress (AJ Cook) is a new mother.
To Answer Erik’s question about how the brother knew the victims were being taken to Canada he had gotten a army bubby to track his sister cell phone and it lead him to Canada.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
That’s so funny you mention Hannibal. After the character “Mason” and the pigs, I thought the same thing. haha.
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
what was the song in the opening scene of season 4 finale: “To Hell…and Back”?
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
That episode might have been good but mainly it made me sick because I always had to think about that pig farmer case in Canada…it just freaks me out that reality always exceeds fiction by far O_O
Oh and by god, if anyone I knew had died out there I couldn’t have stayed there for a sec let alone sitting around!! So Derek - you read my mind!! XD
The brother’s actors totally pulled their roles off - I really liked that…even though it freaked me out too
Poor Hotch - that happens when you think a fucked-up day can’t get any worse!!
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Oh, and I think ‘making a deal’ refers to Hotch’s past as an attorny
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:27 am
Mary, the song is “chip away” by jane’s addiction. it’s off their self titled debut album
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
was lucas played by john goodman ?
He was great. should win an emmy.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
At the end of the episode when Hotchner started talking, he sounded SO convincing about there actually beaing 89 murders in Canada that i actually googled it. but didnt find anything.
Personally i thought the ending was a great cliffhanger.
I cant quite remember what happened to the murderer in episode omnivore.
May 24th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
This was a great finale. Elvia, the episode was based entirely on a true story in Canada. The Robert Pickton murders in B.C…he was a pig farmer who killed upwards of 25 drug users and prostitutes from the Vancover downtown East Side. He is also allegedly “simple” but not the the extent that Lucas was..anyway, this episode was taken straight from that.
May 24th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Actually, he was only convicted of 25 or so killings, but he has confessed to about 50.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I really liked this episode, but then again, Criminal Minds is one of my favs.. I felt like the writers had really brought the horror to life. I am thankful to read that Thomas Gibson will be back. Personally, after the loss of Mandy Patinkin, I was very sad, so I am hoping they keep the rest of my favorites on board..
July 7th, 2009 at 10:21 am
I saw this ep (to hell & back) last night. It was advertised as the last ep of the 4th season. Can someone confirm that, please?If so, is there a 5th season already in the States and will they keep Hotch?
Thank from Cabo Verde
August 13th, 2009 at 1:24 am
when katie is like half dead on the floor and comes back alive does anyone know that song playing while it happend and if u know email me back ok or if u can find out for me cause ive looked everywhere