Cut to the team discussing the case at the round table. They tell us that the man who was killed was a journalist, Albert Stillman, who had been investigating vaccinations. Because Stillman had been investigating drugs prior to the vaccination case, and had received a phone call from a burner phone, the team suspects foul play in his death. The team flies to Atlanta to investigate whether the death was an accident, murder or suicide-to decide if it was an equivocal death.
The Unsub next abducts an entomologist, Dr. Suri. When the doctor comes to, he knows the Unsub, he says "it's you!" The Unsub tries to make him look at the vial of blood to see what is there. Dr. Suri tells him he is sick, so the Unsub puts him in a chamber and covers him in cockroaches. Ick, ick, and double ick! (The Lady covered her eyes during that scene!)
While doing the postmortem on Stillman, they see a welt under the back of his ear and deduce that it is a bite. Since they made a point of mentioning it, you know that it is a clue!
Dr. Siri was dumped in an ally and found with a gunshot to the head and bite marks and Garcia found that he too had received a phone call from the same burner phone!
The team presented the profile: the Unsub is inflicted with Delusory Parasitosis, a mental disorder that makes one feel like bugs are crawling under their skin. He desperately tried to get his story heard, first by Stillman, the journalist, and then Dr. Suri, the entomologist. They said that they should search for the Unsub by checking out entomology and infectious disease fields and hospital intake records.
The Unsub goes to a support group and is drawn to one of the members, Jane, who shared about her problem. He introduced himself to her by saying, "Hi, I'm Leo."
Back at the police station, the team discusses support groups and Garcia finds a support group for Morgellons Disease, which is a disease that causes the affected to see thread-like fibers under their skin.
Meanwhile, Leo is having drinks with Jane, and they commiserate with each other over their problems. They leave to show each other their bumps and bruises and the scene fades with them making out. The next scene shows them the next morning in bed, when someone knocks on the door. It was the Morgellons group leader knocking on Jane's door. While she is knocking on the door, her phone rings and they overhear her talking to "Agent" Jareau. Jane freaks out, wondering why the Feds are after them and Leo says he will take care of it.
Jane tells JJ and the other agent that the government tried to kill Leo once with vaccinations. The ladies talk to Jane and deduce that Leo was injected by someone at the CDC.
Leo, meanwhile, finds the group leader and takes her to his place.
At the CDC, they find that Leo Jenkins was a former lab assistant at the CDC in Atlanta. He had been diagnosed with shingles in his left arm. The doctors at the CDC vaccinated him, which caused him to lose feeling in his left arm. He developed ghost pains in his arm after this, and he attributed this pain to the doctors putting cockroach larvae in his arm rather than the actual vaccination (which reminds me of the season 1 episode with Elle on the train, Derailed).
We next see Leo and the group leader, Lisa, in a basement and he creeps her out by repeating what she said in group, and deduced that she was afraid of spiders and opens a box of big hairy spiders and puts them on her (again, The Lady didn't watch!). Fortunately, the team arrives and saves Lisa from the yucky spiders.
JJ takes Jane home and we find out that Jane is a little bit crazy, she believes that the government is behind all her ailments and calls JJ a liar. We may have to keep an eye on her.
The episode ends with Lisa getting rid of all the baby ointment she used for her own problems, smiling and smiling while looking at a picture of her baby who passed away as an infant.
All in all, despite the iciness of the bugs, it wasn't a bad episode. Not stellar, but not bad.
The Lady is still trying to wrap her head around Jennifer Love Hewitt's character. It suspends belief that an agent who had been working undercover for many years could join the team and jump into profiling without a hitch, including being able to use all the jargon and expound on the various behavioral theories. I remember several seasons ago, season 1 or 2 when Hotch and JJ were talking in the plane on the way back from a case and Hotch asked JJ if she had ever thought about taking the classes and becoming a profiler. JJ coming back as a profiler is a stretch, but at least she had been with the team for several years and had "on the job" training.
~~~~The Lady of the Lake
Why is it so hard to believe that Callahan has done profiling before? Obviously she took classes at the beginning of her career but then got assigned to Andi Swann's unit. Just because she has been doing mostly undercover work doesn't mean that she's inexperienced at everything else. As for jargon, is it really that different for each unit? Your comment about her just really puzzles me.
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