Tonight on CBS CRIMINAL MINDS continues with another new episode called,“Persuasion.” On tonight’s season 9 episode 17 the BAU investigate mysterious drowning deaths in the Las Vegas desert, and try to determine the true cause and motive for the murders.. Did you watch last week’s episode? If you want to catch up before tonight’s new episode, we have a full and detailed recap, right here.
On last week’s episode when a 4-year-old girl went missing while staying with a relative in Mississippi, the BAU uncovered some startling truths as the team raced to find the child and bring her to safety. Series star Thomas Gibson directed the episode. Ashley Jones (“The Bold and the Beautiful”) guest starred as Kate Hoffer, the missing girl’s mother.
On tonight’s episode mysterious drowning deaths discovered in the Las Vegas desert have the BAU trying to figure out the true cause and motive for the murders.
Tonight’s episode looks like it is going to be great and you won’t want to miss it, so be sure to tune in for our live coverage of CBS’s Criminal Minds at 9:00 PM EST! While you wait for our recap hit the comments and let us know how excited you are about the new season? While you wait for the recap check out a sneak peek of tonight’s episode below!
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The BAU gets pulled into a case after a dump site was found in the Las Vegas desert. There were several bodies found at the sit and it looks like the victims were tortured on top of getting drowned. One of the victims was a young woman named Frieda. She was a former drug addict that appeared to be turning her life around until someone decided to murder her.
And because she was a grifter no one reported her missing. Not even her boss at the diner she used to work at. The manager just assumed she went back to her old ways. Though she was actually clean and has been clean for quite a while when she was targeted.
The team travels out to Las Vegas for the case and Reid thinks it could be the perfect time to visit his mom. He hasn’t seen her in a while and he wants to make sure that she’s doing better – she is! His mom is doing well enough that the facility allowed her to go to a group outing all the way out to the Grand Canyon. However Reid is upset by this. Sure, he’s glad his mother is doing well but she didn’t tell him about the trip. She went from writing him a letter every day to forgetting to notify him about leaving the state. So he’s feeling a little bit abandoned.
Yet now isn’t the time to deal with mommy issues. Especially when their Unsub is shaping out to be a serial killer. At the original dumping site there was a sign freshly painted that said 2 of 10. Now they thought it meant the killer had a hit list. This theory didn’t pan out when they found a third victim. The third victim had the same sign – 2 of 10 – near his body. So the team was left with a mystery. They had three victims that are different sexes and were killed differently.
When they started to look into the killer psyche though that’s when certain things began to clear up. The killer appears to be a cult leader. That’s what the sign was for and with every new kill the Unsub starts to get unhinged. So it might not be safe for anyone else to be around this man.
Well someone should have told Finn that. He came to the city to come look for his sister that had run away from home but he wasn’t out of cash and was really bad at stealing. That’s how he came under the attention of an older man, Marvin. Marvin took Finn under his wing and introduced him to his home inside the tunnels.
A lot of homeless people gravitate towards the place. There they get their own beds and a roof over their head. And in return all they have to do is deal with Caesar. Caesar is self-appointed enforcer of the tunnels while he’s real boss, the elusive “Doctor”, remains hidden from everyone else. As a favor for his master, Caesar punished those that disobey the rules and he’s also in charge of collecting of taxes.
All three victims were grifters which means they had nowhere else to turn to except to the homeless community in Vegas. So they were a part of the tunnels as well. That is until they did something wrong and were dealt with by the enforcer. Two of the victims tried to leave and Caesar was told to take care of them. One of the victims tried to escape paying the high tax so he was ordered to kill him.
Back in the tunnels, Finn started to suspect something was wrong about hierarchy. He noticed how everyone was scared of Caesar but he tried to keep his head down. Then a new girl arrived and she needed someone to vouch for her. Finn said she was good and that allowed Sarah to stay. The young woman claimed that she got kicked out of her old place and just needed to crashing for a few days until she earned enough money to go back home.
That was a lie and Caesar soon caught on after he began to watch her. He overheard her talking to her publisher about the story she was writing. Sarah was reporter and she was going to tell the world about the tunnels so Caesar attacked her. He would have killed her if Finn hadn’t stopped him. He didn’t see why someone should be harmed over a newspaper story.
Marvin came in and saw what was happening. He convinced Caesar to let Finn be in charge of getting rid of Sarah. By time the police arrived to raid the tunnels they found Caesar but no Sarah. She’s who helped them find the tunnels in the first place. Her editor had called the police after he lost contact with her.
The team tried to question Caesar at the precinct and it was like he couldn’t make sense. Reid was able to spot the reason behind this. Someone had pulled a mind game on Caesar. Like hypnosis and guess who t eh resident magician in the tunnels is – It’s Martin.
The very same Martin who was last seen with Finn and an unconscious girl. The police were founding out about him around the time he was making “suggestions” to Finn. He was trying to imply that Sarah could ruin everything for them but Finn wasn’t buying it. It seems Finn had some secrets of his own. He did come to town looking for his sister. In their last conversation she warned him that if anything happened to her that it would be “The Doctor’s” fault.
She told him how to meet the doctor and what the man was like. So it didn’t take Finn long to realize who Martin was and he wanted to kill him for it. His sister wasn’t in the tunnels – he knows what that must mean. The only thing that stopped was Reid showing up. Reid lied and said that they found his sister in a crack down. It got Finn to put the gun down and later on Reid asked Martin what really happened to the girl. It looks like there was third body in the dumping ground.
Reid’s mother didn’t forget him after all. She still loved him but chose to send a souvenir rather than an update.
