Recap / Criminal Minds S 9 E 21 What Happens In Mecklinburg

What Happens in Mecklinburg

Directed by Rob Hardy
Written by Ticona Joy

Reid: Albert Einstein said, "In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same."

The B.A.U. are called to Memphis, Tennessee when two men and a woman are abducted. Their investigation reveals they're dealing with an UnSub who is seeking retribution for an extremely personal injustice.

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This Episode contains examples of:

• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • The UnSub punishes one of her sister's rapists by raping him with a fire poker, forcing him to drink hydrochloric acid, then leaving him for dead in the same way he did to her sister after force-feeding her alcohol.
  • Another rapist who claims he can't remember what happened gets one of his legs broken by the UnSub to "jog his memory".
• Disproportionate Retribution: The UnSub's only intended female victim is a classmate of her sister's from college who merely invited her sister to the party where she was raped (and was unaware of what happened).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The UnSub and her younger sister were extremely close; she served as her sister's legal guardian after their parents' death. The UnSub is shown watching a video of them vacationing in Hollywood between torturing her victims.
• Fiendish Fraternity: Three fraternity brothers (two of whom are also Jerk Jocks) brutally gang-rape a student named Lauryn-Ann at a frat party; they later force her to drink excessive amounts of vodka so that even if she reports the assault, no one will believe her, before dumping her in front of her house. Though Lauryn-Ann is able to name her attackers, she soon falls into a coma from alcohol poisoning and eventually dies, leading her older sister Sheila to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the frat brothers.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The UnSub kills the football coach who helped her sister's rapists evade justice by driving a fire poker through his throat.
• I Resemble That Remark!: On the flight back from Tennessee, JJ teases Morgan about his relationship problems with Savannah by impersonating the previous conversations he's had with Garcia when his relationships usually end around the six month mark. Morgan insists he doesn't sound anything like that.
  JJ: [impersonating Morgan] "She doesn't understand, baby girl! Yo, she doesn't understand what our schedules are like!"
  Derek Morgan: Ok, I do not sound like that.
• Knight Templar Big Sister: The UnSub is the older sister of a girl who was gang-raped and left for dead at a college fraternity party. Now that her sister's died of the injuries sustained in that attack, she wants revenge.
• Never My Fault: The one rapist the UnSub fails to abduct tries to claim this, insisting he was forced into participating. JJ doesn't buy it.
  Christopher: They made me—
  JJ: Made you? What, did they hold a gun to your head?
• Not Helping Your Case: The second rapist confesses that after they were done with the UnSub's sister, they got her address from her phone and took her there. The UnSub promptly goes berserk, since the boys' idea of taking her sister home was leaving her for dead on the front lawn, and by the time the UnSub got home, it was too late to save her sister.
  Sheila Harrison: Don't you say it like you did her a favor and gave her a lift, you son of a bitch.
• Oh, Crap!: The rapist being interviewed by JJ and Blake has this reaction when they show him photos of one of his accomplices who's been tortured to death by the UnSub, and bluntly tell him the other is likely suffering the same and the UnSub is after his head too.
• Police Are Useless: Sheila clearly thinks so, given the death of another student at the same party and the actions of a corrupt medical examiner ensured Lauryn's rape was overlooked by the police. She even angrily asks the B.A.U. where they were when she was trying to get the local police to take her insistence Lauryn was raped seriously.
• Promoted to Parent: The UnSub was also her younger sister's legal guardian after their mother died of cancer. Morgan speculates one of the driving forces behind her rage is a feeling of guilt she wasn't there to protect her sister.
  Derek Morgan: You blame yourself for letting Lauryn go to that party.
  Sheila Harrison: (sobbing) She was my responsibility.
  David Rossi: You are not responsible for what happened to Lauryn, but you can help us bring to justice those who are.
• Rape and Revenge: The UnSub wants revenge on her sister's rapists, to the point of even sodomising one of them.
• Rejected Apology: The rapists the UnSub abducts try to beg for their lives by apologising for what happened, but the UnSub angrily retorts that their saying sorry doesn't bring her sister back to life.
  Sheila Harrison: You're sorry?! Well, I am too and here we are. Sorry doesn't change a damn thing.
• Samus Is a Girl: Morgan and JJ conclude from the UnSub's actions that they're dealing with a woman.
  Derek Morgan: Sexual assault, poisoning, the taser to incapacitate their victims... It all points to the UnSub being a woman.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The local press had covered in detail an accidental death at the frat party. But nobody wrote a word about a gang-rape and poisoning at the same party. The doctors at the local hospital covered-up the details of the rape, and the police looked the other way. All because the rapists were connected to a college football team with its own well-connected fixer.
• Shout-Out: The UnSub's choice of mask is similar to SAW.
• Sympathetic Murderer: The UnSub wants justice after the college football players who gang-raped and left her younger sister to die avoided arrest because their coach convinced the doctor, an old friend of his, to falsify her sister's medical report. What finally convinces her to surrender is Rossi promising her sister's rapists will face justice for their crimes.
• Too Dumb to Live: When your abductor is trying to pour an unidentified substance in your mouth, it's probably a good idea to keep it closed.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Hotch and Rossi exude this when confronting the corrupt doctor who deliberately falsified a medical report on the UnSub's sister as a favour to his football coach friend so the team's star players wouldn't be arrested and kicked out for committing rape.
    David Rossi: Here's what's going to happen, Doc. You are going to tell us everything you know about what happened that night.
    Aaron Hotchner: And if that information leads to an arrest, then maybe we won't consider charging you with obstruction of justice.
  • JJ and Blake are clearly angry when they confront the only rapist the UnSub hasn't abducted, telling him that since his victim has now died of her injuries in the hospital, they'll add homicide to the rape charge he's already facing unless he starts talking.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The rapist forced to imbibe acid by the UnSub is last seen by JJ and Morgan being admitted to the hospital, but his status afterwards is unclear. JJ and Blake later show a photo of his injuries to the final rapist in interrogation, indicating he did not survive.

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