Tonight on CBS Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders continues with an all new back to back Wednesday, May 25, season 11 finale called “El Toro Bravo; Paper Orphans,” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode, the International Response Team heads to Pamplona, Spain, famous for the annual running of the bulls; also Season 1 ends with the daughter of an American family, who are visiting Haiti to adopt a child, being kidnapped.
On the last episode, the team investigated when an American college student working in Johannesburg was killed and his brother disappears. Did you watch the last episode? If you missed it, we have a full and detailed recap right here for you.
On tonight’s episode as per the CBS synopsis, “the International Response Team heads to Pamplona, Spain, famous for the annual running of the bulls, when the ears of a missing American tourist are found; also season 1 ends with the daughter of an American family, who are visiting Haiti to adopt a child, being kidnapped. The International Response Team travels to the island nation to find her. Meanwhile, Jack and his wife prepare to send their daughter to college.”
Tonight’s episodes look like they are going to be great and you won’t want to miss them, so be sure to tune in for our live coverage of CBS’s Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders at 9:00 PM EST!
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The IRT were called to Pamplona, Spain where an American lawyer from Seattle reportedly disappeared on tonight’s all new episode of “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders”.
Apparently Clint Smith had been visiting the area with a couple of friends for the Running of the Bulls when he got separated from his group and was never seen again. Only a few days after Clint went missing, Clint’s ears were eventually found a couple miles away inside of the old city. So the IRT quickly delved into the case and the first thing they tried to figure out was why the ears. Did Clint overhear something he shouldn’t have, was the ears a part of the UnSub’s ritual, or was merely a warning for all tourist? What with tourist frequently visiting the area during that time of the year in order to participate in the many festivals, not just the Running of the Bulls.
Either way, though the team knew that they couldn’t waste a single second seeing as there had been more than one victim matching the MO. Last year alone, an Australian had gone missing and his ears had been found in the exact same place as Clint’s. So right away the team knew that Vasconia Plaza must mean something to the UnSub, but Garrett had wanted to check out the site himself in order to see what the UnSub saw. And there he came to understand the real meaning behind San Fermin.
San Fermin as it turns out was once a very religious holiday where people were supposed to give thanks and honor the patron saint of Pamplona, but the true spirit of the holiday that had gotten warped over time. So the festival and the Running of the Bulls tended to bring in tourist that just didn’t see the holiday like the locals did. And therefore, it made sense why the UnSub would bring their ears to Vasconia Plaza. Which had become known as a memorial site that called for peace after years of bloodshed.
But the thing about the plaza was that it was open to everyone and any person that had been nearby could have seen something. So Garrett had decided to ask Father Consolmango whose church sits rights across from the plaza and he had tried to get information out of the other man. He had asked the priest if he saw anything or had met anyone that appeared to be hanging around the plaza frequently. And the priest then blatantly lied to Garrett’s face.
Only Garrett had noticed that the priest lied however he was unable to further question him because the local detective with him didn’t believe in pressuring a priest. So both men had rejoined the others and they were again back to the drawing board because they theory about the UnSub acting religiously hadn’t panned out. The UnSub had struck again and that time he had actually left the ears of his latest victim in San Fermin’s church. And that meant he wasn’t trying to honor the saint, but it had made a good case for him possibly seeing himself as powerful as the saint.
So the team decided to switch focus. When they landed they had honed in on the UnSub yet the victims were the ones that told the real story and so they looked at the victims again. Though the only thing that all of the victims had in common was that in some way managed to disrespect the Running of the Bulls. The bulls in question were supposed to be honored during the run therefore, it was considered both disrespectful as well as dangerous if someone were to touch the bull or purposely hit it. And most of the victims went out of their way to commit one of those crimes.
However, the second American that had gone missing and whose ears had been found in the church hadn’t been like the other men. The victim had actually been an animals’ right activist and he had been overheard crapping on the holiday because he thought it was hypocritical of everyone to pretend they were honoring the bulls when really they were forcing it do something it didn’t want and that could end in the bulls’ death. So the second American had been targeted not because he hadn’t felt for the bulls, but because the UnSub felt he hadn’t respected the bulls’ strength.
And when a third victim went missing, Garrett could no longer stand by. He had gone back to the priest and he had used the victims to guilt the priest into giving him something to work with. So he had been given a proverb that he knew held a second meaning and Monty had helped him out with the rest. Monty took the proverb and he had traced back to Simon Alonso’s birthday and Simon was interesting.
Simon had come from matador family however the family had lost most of their holdings and all they had left was an abandoned building. So Simon was making ends meet by working at a photo booth that covered the bull run and that’s where he probably saw all the many offences. But Garrett and the local police found Simon without a problem and Simon didn’t appear to have it in him to commit such offences.
So the IRT kept looking even as everyone thought the case was closed and that’s how they found Simon’s father. Simon’s father was a matador and how the matador was able to assert his dominance over the bull was to kill it after it had been defeated. Then cut off its ears and tail. And so when the IRT caught up to dear old dad, they found the older man about to commit that same practice on his latest victim because he had wanted to feed it to the bull as a way to assert the bull’s dominance over inferior men.
But a good bullet helped put a stop to what the Alonso patriarch was going with his son’s consent. So the IRT eventually left Pamplona knowing that justice had be done and that they were at least able to return one tourist one home.
Yet, on tonight’s second hour of “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders”, the team were back out on the road when they received word of a kidnapping in Haiti.
Abby Wagner was four years old and she had been taken out of her hotel room while everyone was asleep so the team had to figure how much time the UnSub had on them and why that little girl had been taken in particular. Abby and her family have frequently visited Haiti because her parents were part of numerous outreach programs to help the surrounding area. So that meant that neither of the parents were unused to conditions that still remain in Haiti after the Hurricane and they also must have become accustomed to the darker element. And would have provided for their family’s safety.
Only this latest visit to Haiti hadn’t been about another program, it had been about a little boy. The Wagners were close to adopting a two-year-old by the name of Samuel and they were waiting it out on the island until the adoption came through. So the IRT had first wondered if the adoption had something to do with why they were targeted. It seems that in Haiti there have been a string of kidnappings of Haitian children and often these children would have forgeries that claim they were orphans so they’re known as ‘Paper Orphans’.
And a lot of the times these Paper Orphans would be illegally adopted by American families. So the Military that was overseeing the case had mentioned that possibility of someone being angry with the Wagners for adopting Samuel. However, the Wagners themselves were worried about another possibility. They had apparently put fliers of Abby everywhere so that’s all the IRT saw when they landed and the reason they had done that was because they feared what had happened to Madeline McCann would happen to Abby.
Madeline had been a little girl on vacation with her family and she too had been kidnapped from the hotel room. But the reason Madeline’s story can frighten distraught parents is because Madeline has never been found and her family has no idea what happened to her. So one of the things that the IRT had noticed about the Wagners was that they refused to just wait for answers, they wanted to be proactive. Hence the fliers and both parents willing to do anything they can to help with the investigation.
Abby’s mother showed Mae around their hotel room while Abby’s father offered to help with the search, but Clara managed to divert him by asking him to retrace his steps for her. And fortunately, the parents were able to help. Emily Wagner had thought she lost her hotel key and so that helped the team figure out how the UnSub got into the hotel room because they realized the UnSub must have stolen it. Though the general that was acting as the IRT’s escort had wanted to know how no one heard the perp entering.
The door apparently gives off a sound when it opens so that should have been enough to alert the parents. However, Mae had a theory. She said that no one would have heard the UnSub if they had let themselves in while the family was still out. So she and the general had taken a look around the hotel room for where the UnSub could have hidden and they noticed that the closet in the girls’ room was just the right size for an adult.
So that told them something about the UnSub because only some both bold and patient would have taken a chance of hiding in the closet for hours on end when either of parent could have caught them in there. But the UnSub also showed that they were determined. The hid in the closet and took the girl out of the room by smuggling her in a laundry basket. And didn’t even appear to be fazed on the surveillance cameras that had caught the moment the UnSub had seen Abby’s arm sticking out of the laundry basket and calmly covered her back up.
And in the meantime, Matt had taken a couple of dogs to try and track down Abby’s scent. So the dogs had eventually led him and the acting military to a grave site that had a dead dove lying on top. Almost as if Abby had been either near or apart of some ritual. Although, when they later asked an expert on such things, the only ritual that the expert could come up that would match taking a living child as well as animal sacrifice was a dangerous one.
There was a ritual that many believed could transfer the soul of a dead person into a living one. So that’s what the expert thought was happening, but he warned Matt that the ritual could very well kill Abby. The ritual required enclosing the living in linen sheets and putting them in water. And if someone doesn’t know what they’re doing, they could end up drowning someone or in this case Abby.
But the thing about the ritual was that it had to be done before the next sunrise. So that had meant the IRT weren’t working with a lot of time and therefore Garrett had no other choice than to walk Abby’s father through a memory trick. For Owen probably did remember someone paying too much attention to his family and he probably hadn’t thought much of it because the UnSub hadn’t looked like they were capable of hurting his kids.
And so thinking about, Owen was able to recall a woman in a nanny’s uniform. The name tag had said Sara and she had paid closer attention to Abby than everyone else because Abby had dropped her doll in front of that woman. Who had picked up it up for her. So Abby who had been raised to say thank you had said “Merci” to the UnSub.
Only the UnSub took that one moment to mean something else and that’s how she came to believe that Abby could help her get her daughter back. Sara whose real name had been Seraphina had lost a husband, two sons, a daughter, a granddaughter. The husband had died in the aftershocks of the earthquake and her sons had passed away during cholera outbreak. But her daughter had been impregnated by her rapist and had later died in childbirth with the child. So all those stressors had pushed Seraphina into taking a job with a shady company that had actually been a part of paper orphans. And her association had led her to Abby.
Thankfully, though, Abby had still been fine by time the IRT had tracked down Seraphina. So they had been able to convince Seraphina to let go of the child after they told her that the ritual couldn’t bring back her daughter Elsie. And while it was a happy ending in that they were able to return Abby to her family, there wasn’t a single person on the IRT hadn’t sympathized with Seraphina and her plight.
She had been through too much and had lost too much.
THE END!