Criminal Minds (2005–…): Season 13, Episode 9 - False Flag - full transcript
The BAU is called to investigate when two members of a conspiracy group in Roswell, N.M., perish in quick succession.
The unknown subject we're looking for
is a male, most likely in his 20s,
based on the two victims so far.
But before we go any further,
we need to be clear.
Age is the most difficult
variable to predict.
He could be in his 40s.
A very fit 40s.
So our point is,
the profile is a guide only.
It's an investigative tool,
and we need to stress that.
All we have is a series of deductions,
but one of those deductions
is that the unsub knew
his victims personally.
Which is why we're delivering
the profile to you,
because you also knew the victims.
So, our goal is not to
make you uncomfortable
or suspicious. Normally we wouldn't
even give the profile this early,
but you are our best chance
at discovering the identity of...
Yes?
I have a question for Agent Rossi.
Go ahead.
Why did your last book...
Suck so bad?
[LAUGHTER]
Uh... well, we're not
gonna talk about that now.
Really? That's all I want to talk about.
I mean, you even consider
that Tommy Yates was a patsy?
Look, we get it, ok?
You have no reason to trust us.
We're the FBI, and you are
the official community
of the Roswell, New Mexico, truthers.
Thanks for not calling us
conspiracy theorists.
Well, we know you don't like that term.
While we don't agree with your
opinions, a lot of people do.
Like how September 11th
was an inside job,
or how vapor trails
from jets are poisonous,
or how lizard people are
secretly running the government.
Ah-ah-ah! Confirmation from the FBI.
You all heard it.
No, no, see that's
specifically not what I was...
Ok. We need your help
to stop a killer who
is hiding in this group.
That's why we are having
this here in this Legion Hall
and not at the police station.
We don't want you to feel surveilled...
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
[SHOUTING, SCREAMING]
Drop it!
PRENTISS: All right,
everybody calm down.
What's your name?
I'm Emily.
Emily Prentiss. It says right here.
The reason I'm asking is so
we can have a conversation.
[BREATHING HARD] Doug.
I'm Doug.
Great, Doug. Let's just take a second.
Let's think through the logic of this.
I... i didn't do any of this!
We're not saying you did,
but you are making
things worse with that gun.
The reason we asked you here,
the only reason,
is to listen. That's all.
Ok? So just listen.
Listen. Put the gun down.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- No!
[GUNSHOT]
GARCIA: “Once you eliminate
the impossible,
whatever remains,
no matter how improbable,
must be the truth.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
[DOOR OPENS]
Can I go home now?
No. We're holding you and
your friends for 24 hours.
You're all persons of interest
in a murder investigation.
Murder? What, Doug killed himself.
True. But there are still two
other victims to account for.
Now, normally when
there's a public suicide,
it's because the suspect
is the serial killer
and he's killed himself out of guilt.
But we can't prove that yet,
so, our investigation is still open.
He said this whole thing
was a false flag,
which means he thought
you were trying to frame him.
I know what a false flag is.
The FBI doesn't frame people.
What, not anymore?
You know, all of your
friends have lawyered up.
Called us Nazis, or both.
But you haven't.
So?
So that tells me you want to get
to the bottom of this
just as much as we do.
Do you know what a podcast is?
I do.
Well, I have one.
So if we're actually gonna do this,
you give me back my phone
and I record our conversation
for my podcast,
'cause I'm not talking to you
without documenting everything.
You want this on the record?
Of course. I want this on the record.
Otherwise I'm lawyering up
with all my friends.
So what do you say?
PRENTISS: The answer's no.
I think we should consider it.
No. She will control the audio.
She can twist your words,
edit them to make the bureau look bad.
We already look bad.
The brass is gonna want to know
how and why Doug killed
himself in front of us.
Yeah, and that's my ass,
but I'm not making this situation
worse than it already is.
Garcia, have we confirmed
that this truther's even legit?
GARCIA: Of course I've
confirmed that, and she is.
Melissa Miller has a pretty
popular truther podcast,
especially around Roswell.
She promotes all kinds of conspiracies,
but her cause celebre
is staged shootings.
So she thinks the reason
we have gun violence,
it's been faked by the government
as a pretext to revoke the
second amendment. Nice.
It's another reason not to do this.
Or it's the exact reason to do this.
What was tonight, other
than a staged shooting,
and why is she the only
one willing to cooperate?
Unsubs like to insert themselves
into the investigation.
Profile skews male,
but she could be a partner.
Ok, then, if she isn't involved,
I can get her to talk.
I'm a forensic psychologist.
I'm trained to outwit and outsmart
clinical psychopaths far
more dangerous than her.
But if we're wrong, she's
going to post her podcast.
Then what? Then we're
the next example of fake news.
Look, everybody, give us a second.
You, too, Garcia.
We don't just have egg on our face,
we have blood on our hands.
It's not like these conspiracy theorists
are gonna be quiet.
I am aware of that. I need options.
We're out of them.
The profile says it's a truther,
and only one of them is talking to us.
We have to throw a Hail Mary.
[CELL PHONE DINGS]
Say something. We need to make sure
the levels are good.
I'm Dr. Tara Lewis of the BAU...
No. Say something interesting.
Tell me how you really
feel about truthers.
My audience could use a sense
of the FBI's bias against us.
I got my Ph.D. by taking a theory,
testing it, and then proving my results.
Now, proving my results means
that I take those results
and I turn them over to other scientists
to see if they can replicate them.
And if they can't,
then my theory was wrong.
See, that's science.
A consensus of evidence
that we call truth.
What you do is different.
Oh, no, it's not.
Yes, it is. Because your
theories are unprovable.
Give me one.
Uh, President Obama wasn't born here.
He was born in Kenya.
Perfect. That's perfect.
So, I show you his long-form
birth certificate,
and then you would respond
that it's been faked
because that's how deep
the conspiracy goes.
And then that becomes your argument
against any evidence that I provide.
It's a cognitive trick that keeps you
from having to admit that life is messy.
It's random. Not everything fits
the easy explanation
that a conspiracy gives you.
All right, then. Well, let's
talk about the murders.
When did you first hear about them?
Yesterday. When we were invited in.
GARCIA: It's time to get out our
tinfoil hats, my fine furry friends,
because we are on our way
to Roswell, New Mexico,
aka, ground zero of conspiracy theorists
because of a certain alien
crash... i mean weather balloon.
The sheriff there has had
two suspicious deaths
over the last 48 hours.
Both victims were members
of the truther movement.
Yes, which is a group
of conspiracy theorists
who share their out-there
beliefs online with each other.
No judgment here. Let's look
at our first victim Bryan Behar.
He believed that the fluoride
they put in our drinking water
is a mind-control agent
meant to keep us docile.
He died by drowning.
People drown all the time, you say.
I say not in their own aquariums.
So the M.O. matches his conspiracy.
Is that a coincidence or a choice?
That depends on victim number two.
Uh-huh. That's Carl Lee.
He's a JFK conspiracy nut
who was shot once in the throat.
As anyone who saw
the Zapruder film knows,
that's where the first
bullet struck Kennedy.
Carl Lee we can definitively
classify as a homicide,
but the drowning death... that
could have another explanation.
That's why we'll be treating this
as an equivocal death investigation.
Wheels up in 20.
Back up. What was that term you used?
Equivocal something?
An equivocal death investigation.
It's an investigation
where we consider all options.
It could be a murder,
but it could also be a suicide
or an accident or even natural causes.
Are you saying these
murders weren't murder?
Is that the FBI's official position?
I'm saying we let clues
guide us to a deduction.
We don't jump to conclusions.
But as we were flying here,
our technical analyst
uncovered something unusual.
Right. Your technical analyst.
That would be Penelope Garcia?
Yeah. I looked up your whole
team before coming in here.
Why did you do that?
Because I'm a naturally
suspicious person
who wanted to get
a feel for your methods.
Specifically the illegal
surveillance that the FBI
is willing to resort to to
frame innocent men and women.
As I said, the FBI doesn't frame anyone,
and we certainly don't
do anything illegal.
Well, I guess that depends
on what Garcia found
and how she found it.
So what did she find?
GARCIA: It looks like our two victims
were talking via encrypted texts.
It took a while to break,
and their conversation was short,
but its content
made my perfectly shaped
eyebrows go, “Hmm?”
Carl says to Bryan, “I think I'm close
to finding out who it is.”
to which Bryan says,
“Maybe we should go to the police.”
and Carl says,
“What good would that do?”
Well, that could be motive.
Whatever Carl was close to finding
could have killed him and Bryan.
At first glance, yeah.
But we're talking about
conspiracy theorists here,
and a lot of them suffer
from association fallacy.
Let's say you thought Lyndon Johnson
had JFK killed in order
to escalate the war in Vietnam.
Ok, stop right there.
What?
You guys have a jet?
Yes.
A jet.
Yes.
Black helicopters
surveilling the American people.
No, no, that's ridiculous.
But a little branch of the FBI
has its own private jet.
Ok, one, I never said the FBI doesn't
have black helicopters.
And, two, when people
are being murdered,
we have to respond quickly.
[SCOFFS] A jet.
I can't even.
Sorry. Where were we?
Let's say you thought Lyndon Johnson
had JFK killed in order to
escalate the war in Vietnam.
That's ridiculous.
Everybody knows that...
PRENTISS: No, no.
We're not getting into that again.
Go ahead, Luke.
Uh, my point is, that if you thought
the government could do that,
then you were likely believe that they'd
brought down the towers on 9-11.
Pretty soon you're down that rabbit hole
and you see everything as a plot.
So maybe these guys
weren't into anything.
Maybe they just talked themselves
into a group delusion.
Ok, we should investigate
that when we land.
And since the police
are mentioned so prominently
on the text, they might know
what the victims were looking into.
The Chicago mob, right? Killed JFK.
He gets it.
No. Don't get him started, Matt.
Next, he'll be showing
you YouTube clips.
So I'm sure when you flew in,
they showed you Carl
and Bryan's police record.
They did. And what we saw
were 4 years of reports
that both men were convinced
someone was watching them.
But despite his best efforts,
Sheriff Bowman
was never able to find
any evidence of stalking.
Oh, yeah. 'Cause he tried really hard.
You know what was much more interesting
was what we found when
we walked the crime scenes.
The glass is 3/4 of an inch
thick and that's sturdy.
If you wanted to drown
someone in an aquarium,
that would do the trick.
They said there was a bleach
solution in the water,
so he was probably cleaning it
and his ear buds were in.
Make it easy to sneak up on Bryan.
Unsub wouldn't have
had to work too hard.
Bryan was startled.
He took in water and bleach,
and he was asphyxiated before
he knew what was happening.
How did the unsub get in here?
Hey, Matt, a question for you.
Any evidence of a break-in
at your crime scene?
Hang on, JJ. Let me check.
Any signs of forced entry?
No, sir.
No, none here either.
What I am seeing is an unsub
who covers up his tracks.
It looks like he shot
Carl in the throat...
Bullet was a through and through.
Came out the other side of Carl's neck
and went in the wall.
Dug it out, picked up the casing,
took the gun with him.
So this guy knows how
to clean up after himself
and how to get in and out
of two houses without detection.
JJ, let me call you back.
Looks like an RFID card.
Mm-hmm. What's it go to?
That's the question.
Huh. Well, hello.
Huh.
That gun's missing.
Well, it means the
unsub's no mastermind.
It's been right under
our nose the whole time.
So we went through Carl's meticulous log
of his hardware, and the
missing gun should be here.
It is a Bodyguard 380.
Now, if the unsub found this
in a secret compartment,
then he knows Carl, probably very well.
And based on the fortress
that Carl lived in,
it'd probably be another truther.
No one else could get that close.
And that would explain why there was
no forced entry at Bryan's either.
So when Carl said,
“I'm close to finding out
who it is,” he wasn't talking
about some secret cabal,
he was talking about a friend.
PRENTISS: Someone he was
willing to call the cops on.
We should bring all the
truthers in for questioning.
No, no, that won't work.
They won't cooperate under coercion.
Look, I say we lay all our
cards out on the table.
Let's deliver our profile to them.
Oh, that's risky.
But worth it. Either one of the truthers
points us to the unsub...
Or he shows up himself.
And that brings us up to tonight.
Ballistics confirmed
that the gun that killed Carl
was the one that Doug used on himself.
All the evidence points to Doug Downey
as our killer, except...
Except you don't
have anything tying Doug
to Bryan's drowning.
Melissa, I've been as transparent
as I can possibly be.
Is there anything we've missed?
[SIGHS]
One thing.
But you didn't miss it,
you covered it up.
Specifically, that the sheriff
made us all walk through
a metal detector.
What?
Don't pretend you didn't know that.
And don't pretend you don't know why.
Someone in law enforcement
planted a gun on Doug.
Because what was it that he
was saying earlier tonight?
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
[SHOUTING]
MeliSSA, that doesn't make any sense.
You tell me what's more believable...
A missing gun in a wacky compartment
or the police planted
a Bodyguard 380,
a very popular firearm
in law enforcement, on Doug.
Then, they call their friends
all the way in Quantico
and you guys get on your fancy jet
and come out here to make sure
that the cover-up's complete.
That's not what happened.
Am I your unsub? Yes or no?
You are a person of interest,
just like every other truther
in this building tonight.
That's a yes.
Which is why I'm recording all of this,
to show the world exactly how far
the FBI is willing to go
to cover up the truth.
Ok. Let's take a moment.
I think we've gotten off track.
No, no. No, we're, uh,
we're right where we need to be.
See, I wanted the brilliant
science of behavioral profiling
to provide an answer for all this.
I really did.
But right now, from where I'm sitting,
this crazy conspiracy theorist
is the only one making any sense.
Guys, hold up.
- Can we plug this in somewhere?
- Yes, ma'am.
So this is the metal detector
you had at the legion hall?
- Mm-hmm.
- And you made all
- the truthers walk through it.
- Yep.
And then after that you
brought it back here
to the police stations, you
haven't touched it since?
Sheriff, why didn't you tell us
you were gonna do that?
You told us you didn't
want to spook the truthers.
You also told us
the killer might show up,
so this was for our protection.
Can you tell me I was wrong?
No, sheriff, you weren't wrong,
but it does beg the bigger question.
How the hell did Doug get
a gun through that thing?
I was hoping you could answer that,
you all being the geniuses
with this investigation.
JJ: No, that's not right.
ALVEZ: What do you mean it's not right?
It says it right here.
No, that's not what I saw.
Did that just...
LEWIS: Yeah. Yeah, it did.
What is it?
[BEEP]
How in the world could that happen?
- I think I might know.
- MELISSA: Bullcrap.
Bull crap.
You know, I would use stronger language,
but I don't want this podcast
to get an “explicit” rating.
Well, it's the truth.
Metal detectors require
precise calibration.
Otherwise, they're susceptible
to all kinds of interference.
Photocopiers, Bluetooth,
even fluorescent lighting.
The sheriff was in such a
hurry to get it set up
down at the Legion Hall that he assumed
it would work the same
way it always had,
but it didn't.
I still don't buy it.
Do you know why?
Why what?
Why you don't buy it.
I can tell you.
[EXHALES]
It's called proportionality bias.
You see, it's our natural human instinct
to assume that big events
have big causes.
We don't want to believe
that a lone gunman
killed JFK with a rifle
he bought for 19.99,
or that hijackers brought down 4 planes
using only box cutters.
I mean, there has to be
a better explanation.
We need an answer
that's more satisfying,
but sometimes it just isn't.
You know? Machines break down.
Systems don't work. Life is messy.
It's random.
Fine. Let's just test
your version, shall we?
Let's.
You're saying that Doug snuck a gun
through a metal detector,
a metal detector
he would have no way
of knowing was broken.
Is that your story?
Well, why don't you
tell me a better one.
Not my job.
What my audience wants to hear, however,
is how well your team does yours.
All right, well, while
Agent Prentiss and I
were figuring out the mystery
of the malfunctioning metal detector,
agents Jareau and Simmons
headed to the morgue.
So let's presume Bryan Behar
here died of asphyxiation
from drowning. What I
can't explain is this.
These chemical burns on his face.
Well, he was drowned
in a bleach solution.
Would that do this?
No. This looks like some form
of aerosolized toxin,
but damned if I could
tell you what kind.
And that's still not the
oddest thing I've seen today.
Mr. Carl Lee, shot in the throat,
but covering his wound, this doozy.
The blood matches Mr. Lee.
Myoglobin on the blood says he
was alive when it happened,
and only his prints are on it.
Obviously it's from a book,
but I can't tell which one.
We can.
It's from “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Wow.
Does that mean something to you?
[SCOFFS]
Of course that means something to me.
“The Catcher in the Rye” has been linked
to multiple killers
since it was first published.
And when Mark David
Chapman shot John Lennon,
he said, “read 'Catcher in the Rye.'
that's my statement.”
it was found on
John Hinckley's bookshelf
after he shot Reagan.
Oswald, Manson, Robert Bardo,
they were all obsessed with it.
It was the original brainwashing tool
of the United States Government.
I wouldn't call it that.
Of course you wouldn't.
Because then you'd have to admit
how sophisticated the whole-scale duping
of this nation has become.
I'm not following you.
Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook.
The United States Government
shot up a bunch of empty buildings
and then gathered everything up
and traded it amongst themselves
because that's how
plausible deniability works.
Sandy Hook was staged?
Sandy Hook was staged the worst.
All those actors they
threw in front of cameras
to be grieving parents.
I was screaming at my television set,
“You're lying!”
and if they would lie about that,
then they would absolutely
lie about a metal detector.
So let me make one thing
clear moving forward.
When I say they, I mean you.
Give me one second.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- Son of a...
- [SCREAMING, BANGING]
What the hell kind of outfit
you running here, agent?
You want to talk about it?
No.
It's ok to tap out if you want.
No. Emily, I can do this.
Has she said anything that points
to her involvement in the murders?
Have you gotten any answers out of her?
Maybe it's time
to change up the strategy.
Where's Dr. Lewis?
I'm SSA Jareau. I'm here to talk to you
about your favorite book,
“Catcher in the Rye.”
[LAUGHS] I get it.
You're rotating agents now,
wearing me down
so I can't see your lies.
Is that the game?
I just had some information
Agent Lewis didn't,
but if you don't want to hear it...
Oh, no, I want to hear it.
[DING]
So after we found
such a prominent clue on Carl,
we wanted to study the original text,
so we got a copy of the book.
Apparently, “Catcher in the Rye”
is the local book club
selection this month.
And did you know
that there are two actual...
ALVEZ: ...Brick and mortar
bookstores in Roswell?
But one of the owners
was happy to give me a copy.
What page is it?
Uh, 76. That's what was on Carl.
Ok, here it is. It, uh,
it starts mid-sentence.
“Don't see how he could
like a phony book like that
and still like the one by Ring Lardner.”
No, that's not right.
What do you mean, it's not right?
I have it right here.
That's not what I saw.
PRENTISS: Did that just...
Yeah, see, this page 76 is different.
The page on Carl's throat was annotated.
The publisher bolded terms
and phrases for emphasis.
Well, that would throw the
whole layout of the book off
and then your page 76
wouldn't look like this one.
Ok, there are two editions of the book.
That's common.
But maybe it's not
the page that's important.
Maybe it's the edition.
The devil's in the
pitchforky little details,
my friends.
I matched the formatting
of the text on poor doomed Carl
to a local publisher.
He goes by the name of Bob Orci.
He writes conspiracy-related commentary
for books like “Behold a Pale Horse,”
“Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”
“Mein Kampf.”
books the truthers love.
Right now we need as much
evidence as possible
to prove that Doug is our unsub.
If he bought the book we found on Carl,
it strengthens our case.
Luke, you and Matt,
bring in this publisher.
I'm on it. Garcia, can you
help me out with an address?
Yeah, I'm working on the physical
address of Mr. Orci as we speak.
The thing is, he lives so far out there
that it's not a place
where there are street numbers
on the houses, so the closest single
physical address I can get you is...
Route 3, Greenwood Way?
You know him?
By reputation. He's not a truther.
He's an anarchist. He's dangerous.
How dangerous?
He has fertilizer lining
his place as an explosive.
Prentiss!
Wait. That far out in the desert,
there's no cell service.
You're not gonna reach them by phone.
[COYOTE HOWLING]
ALVEZ: Is that ANFO, Matt?
Yeah.
FBI!
Oh, my God.
[DOOR OPENS]
What's going on? Who are you?
I'm SSA Emily Prentiss of the BAU.
Melissa, you're gonna
want to take a seat.
Oh, God, someone died, didn't they?
What makes you say that?
You guys have had me
waiting in here for hours
while your team tracked down Bob Orci.
What happened?
Are you recording this? You should.
[DING]
Agents Simmons and Alvez
landed at Bob Orci's at 3:37 A.M.
The were very surprised
by what they found.
FBI!
Oh, my God.
Hey, guys, meet Bob Orci.
Weapons down, please.
You were saying...
Wait. So you got there before them.
- How?
- By helicopter.
Not the Bureau's helicopter.
This one belongs to the police force.
What?
There's been a push.
Police forces across the country
have been purchasing
military-grade hardware.
Yeah. Like grenade launchers and tanks.
Roswell doesn't need a tank.
It needs a helicopter. People
get lost in the desert.
Sometimes an FBI agent like me
needs to get to a cabin
in the middle of nowhere
as fast as possible.
Based on your warning, the sheriff and I
landed a mile away
and we came up with a plan.
FBI! Hands up, now!
Now!
Wh-what?! What is...
Hands on your head.
Get on your knees.
Where's the fertilizer, Bob?
The fertili... Uh, it's...
It's under the tarp over there.
- Check it out.
- Yes, sir.
Uh...
No, that's, uh, my...
my organic tomatoes
need special soil, and... and...
Th-that's my vitamin supplements
are in those barrels.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.
No, please. Please.
I... i swear to you,
I will surrender everything.
Just please don't kill me.
Organic tomatoes.
Yeah.
ANFO stands for
ammonium nitrate fuel oil. Fuel oil.
You can't grow anything with it.
We pointed that out to Bob.
He said that must be why
his tomatoes kept dying.
We searched the whole compound anyway.
There was no bomb.
But Bob Orci
had quite the story to tell.
It's all an act. I'm no hermit.
Yeah, I... I tell these truthers
that I'm some kind of holy fool
and they buy all my stuff.
By “stuff,” you mean your books?
No, the books are a loss-leader.
But the vitamin supplements, oh,
oh, my God, I've made so much money
off the vitamin supplements.
So, “Catcher in the Rye”"
is just the latest
in a long line of crap.
Well, the book itself isn't.
And J.D. Salinger is a genius.
Didn't your read my commentary,
read my notes, annotations?
I tried. You lost me
when you tried to connect
Holden Caulfield to
the Bilderberg Group.
There is no connection.
All you gotta do to fool these morons
is to ask a question that starts with,
“Isn't it interesting?”
like... like...
Like, isn't it interesting
that Holden Caulfield
and Bilderberg Group
both have 15 letters.
Yeah. And then you tag that
with “Wow! Wake up, sheeple,”
you just sold a thousand copies.
We think the killer might have bought
one of your commentaries.
Who'd you sell to in Roswell?
The book group is reading
“Catcher in the Rye”" next month,
so all I was trying to do
is capitalize on that.
And only one guy seemed
to show any interest.
- [DOOR BANGS OPEN]
- FBI!
Oh, my God.
Hey, guys, meet Bob Orci.
Weapons down, please. You were saying...
Carl Lee.
The guy's name was Carl Lee.
So it was Carl's copy.
Doug didn't bring it with him?
Why would Doug put page
76 over Carl's throat?
He didn't.
Only Carl's fingerprints and DNA
were on that page.
Doug never touched it.
You've lost me.
Ever been shot before?
People do weird things
when they're shot.
[GUNSHOT]
[GROANS]
PRENTISS: Carl was slipping into shock,
meaning he had some vague
awareness that he was gonna die
and his brain was short-circuiting.
So that clue that seemed
so important 4 hours ago,
it means nothing.
Life is messy, random.
That's why I sent Agent Jareau
back to the first crime scene.
We needed to take a look at it again
without any preconceptions.
And when she saw the cleaning supplies,
she had an idea.
Specifically, what happens
when you're not careful
how you clean your aquarium?
So she had Garcia do some research.
So let's talk about weird science.
There are certain types of coral
that when they come
into contact with bleach,
release something called a palytoxin.
So the coral, it, like,
emits this aerosol
and then that aerosol causes the throat
and the lungs to close and
the eyes and the skin to burn.
Well, that's the mystery chemical weapon
the M.E. couldn't place.
So let's play this out.
He pours in the bleach,
coral spits out its toxin,
and mother nature does the rest.
[GASPING]
It's not murder.
It's an accident.
We're veering dangerously close
to bullcrap territory.
We could call it murder.
If the profile was Charles Darwin's
theory of natural selection,
we could arrest
the piece of coral, I guess.
Or, we could just accept that life is...
Messy, random. Yeah.
Until it's not.
What does that mean?
Well, that seemingly unimportant book,
there was one additional
detail Bob Orci told us about
that I forgot to mention.
No, I... I didn't forget.
I was holding back for dramatic effect.
Carl Lee. His name was Carl Lee.
And the reason that sticks out
is because he asked me
to write a dedication
on the inside cover of the book.
It's something I add
for an extra 20 bucks.
You know? And sometimes
I use the wild man font
and the truthers all go,
“Oh, wow, look, he actually
wrote stuff in my book.”
Tara, we have something.
Found it, Emily.
What does it say?
“To my darling Melissa,
love always, Carl.”
We were dating. That's not a crime.
So why hide it?
The truther community is small,
and we're gossipy.
Also, we're already convinced
agents like you are watching us.
So Carl and I covered our tracks.
So well, in fact, that the
great and powerful Garcia
is not going to find them.
I believe you.
Which is why we had to rely
on old-fashioned profiling
to figure out this next part.
And it started with a
question you asked first.
Why would Doug kill
himself for no reason?
So, we reconstructed Doug's
suicide to see what we missed.
- So you were there and I was here.
- Right.
And then he was screaming at you,
“I know a false flag
when I see one, bitch.”
and then bang.
No, that's not right.
He said all those things, but not to me.
He was looking at you.
No, no. If someone
made eye contact with me
and called me a bitch, I'd remember.
Maybe he wasn't looking
at either of you.
He was looking between you.
Uh... JJ, you were posted up over there
- for line of sight.
- Yeah.
Ok, there's only one one other woman
in the room he would
have been talking to.
The reason we asked you here,
the only reason, is to listen.
That's all.
So just listen.
Listen. Put the gun down.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- [GUNSHOT]
It all started with Carl's text.
“I'm close to finding out who it is.”
He was talking about Melissa,
as in, “I'm close to finding
out who she's cheating with.”
she was cheating with Doug?
Yes. And when she found out
Carl was onto her, she killed him.
Whoa. Slow down there, partner.
Think about it. It's the oldest
motivation in the book...
Sex. Melissa is cunning
and manipulative,
and she is a psychopath, and a good one.
I mean, she sat there while I
laid out this entire case,
she did not tip a thing.
Now, Doug's prints were on the
gun because of the suicide,
but with Carl, Melissa could
have used gloves, and...
What?
Why is everybody staring at me?
Tara, I want to believe that.
An arrest would relieve a lot of tension
on this case, but...
But we don't have the evidence,
and without the evidence, we're
no better than the truthers.
No better than the truthers.
Melissa...
Thinks that Sandy Hook was staged.
I was there...
That day, and I counseled those parents,
and I saw...
I saw those kids.
So the day that I lose
to someone like her...
That's the day that I quit.
It's biased thinking,
and if we allow it to color our profile
and the arrest falls apart,
we'll be a stain on the Bureau.
Ok, so what, we just...
We just back off on Melissa?
No. We back up our profile.
You have a theory, Tara.
Now prove your results.
Now, once we're inside Melissa's
house, what are we looking for?
Well, maybe she cleaned up
Carl Lee's crime scene.
The gun's accounted for, but the
missing bullet and casing aren't.
Great start. What else?
I admit my bias, out loud,
because I wasn't able to see
what was right in front
of me the whole time.
I thought anyone who believed
in conspiracy theories
had to be deluded. There was
no way they could outsmart me.
And I was wrong. There is a
conspiracy in this case.
And you are at the center of it.
So, allow me to be clear
from this point forward.
I'm going to give you one
chance to tell the truth,
one. Keep in mind we are
already searching your place.
If you lie, if you hold back in any way,
I will know about it,
and I will nail you for it,
all the way to a life sentence.
Wow.
What's the point of this?
I guess there's just
one last thing to say
before I invoke my right to an attorney.
Good luck.
- ROSSI: Anything?
- Melissa's house was spotless.
Zero evidence of her involvement.
How are you guys doing?
Yikes.
Yeah, every time
we try to reason it out,
we keep hitting different walls.
We have to make an arrest
or release all the truthers
from custody.
Give me the version
that makes the most sense.
Ok, well, Doug was holding
the gun that killed Carl,
but there is nothing behaviorally
that points to him being a killer.
And Melissa's the
undiagnosed psychopath,
and Carl was figuring out
that she was cheating.
And as his girlfriend, she would
know where he hid his guns,
and so we... We're thinking this.
Carl and Melissa were fighting.
Psychopaths aren't known
for their small egos
or impulse control,
and so Melissa got angry
and she waits for Carl to turn his back,
- Carl!
- And then bang.
So she cleans up as best as she could,
but now she has to hide what she did.
So we asked the truthers
to listen to our profile,
and she thought, “A-ha!
I'll turn this to my advantage.
“I'll frame my boyfriend,
who is the most likely suspect
if they put this together.”
so she slips the gun into Doug's pocket.
And Doug walks through without incident
because the metal detector is broken.
He doesn't notice the gun in his pocket
until midway through
our profiling and he panics.
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
He assumes, like all truthers,
that no one in the government
is gonna believe him,
so his last words aren't to us,
but to Melissa.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- [GUNSHOT]
That's the version
that makes the most sense.
Even if I buy it, a D.A. won't.
We need more, guys.
Well, the only thing that's left
is the bullet and the casing.
But she could have dumped that anywhere.
No, that's not the only thing.
The podcast.
She... she had us right
where she wanted.
She could have posted the
audio of our conversation
to prove we were
trying to cover this up,
but instead she deleted it.
Which she only would have done
if she had revealed herself somehow.
She didn't say anything incriminating
when I talked to her.
Me neither.
Then it was me. She let something slip,
something she doesn't
want me to remember.
So, what?
Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook.
The United States Government
shot up a bunch of empty buildings
and then gathered everything up
and traded it amongst themselves,
because that's how
plausible deniability works.
[EXHALES]
She traded it.
Traded what?
The bullet and the shell casing.
She took the evidence and she
gave it to someone else.
And you know this because...
Think about a conspiracy
theory like a pathology.
What disgusts her, what she
fears most in other people,
that's the action she'll copy
to justify her own belief system.
So who has the bullet?
Who else?
The unsub we've been looking for
is Melissa Miller, and we think
she's made one of you an accomplice
to her murder of Carl Lee.
ROSSI: An unwitting accomplice.
We aren't keeping you in custody.
Anyone who wants to leave can,
and everyone that wanted representation
has a lawyer present.
All we want is for you
to listen to our theory.
After Carl Lee's murder,
Melissa approached one of you
and she told you
that the U.S. Government
was going to frame
both Bryan and Carl's murder
on the truthers.
Right on cue, we showed up.
So, she gave you a box or bag,
told you not to look inside,
said it was all part of our cover-up.
What she gave you was material evidence
of Carl's murder.
Now, you can think what you want of us,
we are not here to frame anyone.
We're not the murderers. She is.
Did anyone accept something
like this from her?
I did.
It's... it's at my house.
You know what that is, Melissa?
That is a magic bullet.
Stand up.
Melissa Miller, you are under arrest
for the murder of Carl Lee.
You have the right to remain silent.
You have the right to an attorney.
♪ So we faked ourselves on the ending ♪
♪ and breathe in their lies ♪
♪ while the water brings no cleansing ♪
♪ just reflects strangers' eyes ♪
LEWIS: “Everyone is entitled
to his own opinion,
but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
♪ Truth was too hard to mention ♪
is a male, most likely in his 20s,
based on the two victims so far.
But before we go any further,
we need to be clear.
Age is the most difficult
variable to predict.
He could be in his 40s.
A very fit 40s.
So our point is,
the profile is a guide only.
It's an investigative tool,
and we need to stress that.
All we have is a series of deductions,
but one of those deductions
is that the unsub knew
his victims personally.
Which is why we're delivering
the profile to you,
because you also knew the victims.
So, our goal is not to
make you uncomfortable
or suspicious. Normally we wouldn't
even give the profile this early,
but you are our best chance
at discovering the identity of...
Yes?
I have a question for Agent Rossi.
Go ahead.
Why did your last book...
Suck so bad?
[LAUGHTER]
Uh... well, we're not
gonna talk about that now.
Really? That's all I want to talk about.
I mean, you even consider
that Tommy Yates was a patsy?
Look, we get it, ok?
You have no reason to trust us.
We're the FBI, and you are
the official community
of the Roswell, New Mexico, truthers.
Thanks for not calling us
conspiracy theorists.
Well, we know you don't like that term.
While we don't agree with your
opinions, a lot of people do.
Like how September 11th
was an inside job,
or how vapor trails
from jets are poisonous,
or how lizard people are
secretly running the government.
Ah-ah-ah! Confirmation from the FBI.
You all heard it.
No, no, see that's
specifically not what I was...
Ok. We need your help
to stop a killer who
is hiding in this group.
That's why we are having
this here in this Legion Hall
and not at the police station.
We don't want you to feel surveilled...
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
[SHOUTING, SCREAMING]
Drop it!
PRENTISS: All right,
everybody calm down.
What's your name?
I'm Emily.
Emily Prentiss. It says right here.
The reason I'm asking is so
we can have a conversation.
[BREATHING HARD] Doug.
I'm Doug.
Great, Doug. Let's just take a second.
Let's think through the logic of this.
I... i didn't do any of this!
We're not saying you did,
but you are making
things worse with that gun.
The reason we asked you here,
the only reason,
is to listen. That's all.
Ok? So just listen.
Listen. Put the gun down.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- No!
[GUNSHOT]
GARCIA: “Once you eliminate
the impossible,
whatever remains,
no matter how improbable,
must be the truth.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
[DOOR OPENS]
Can I go home now?
No. We're holding you and
your friends for 24 hours.
You're all persons of interest
in a murder investigation.
Murder? What, Doug killed himself.
True. But there are still two
other victims to account for.
Now, normally when
there's a public suicide,
it's because the suspect
is the serial killer
and he's killed himself out of guilt.
But we can't prove that yet,
so, our investigation is still open.
He said this whole thing
was a false flag,
which means he thought
you were trying to frame him.
I know what a false flag is.
The FBI doesn't frame people.
What, not anymore?
You know, all of your
friends have lawyered up.
Called us Nazis, or both.
But you haven't.
So?
So that tells me you want to get
to the bottom of this
just as much as we do.
Do you know what a podcast is?
I do.
Well, I have one.
So if we're actually gonna do this,
you give me back my phone
and I record our conversation
for my podcast,
'cause I'm not talking to you
without documenting everything.
You want this on the record?
Of course. I want this on the record.
Otherwise I'm lawyering up
with all my friends.
So what do you say?
PRENTISS: The answer's no.
I think we should consider it.
No. She will control the audio.
She can twist your words,
edit them to make the bureau look bad.
We already look bad.
The brass is gonna want to know
how and why Doug killed
himself in front of us.
Yeah, and that's my ass,
but I'm not making this situation
worse than it already is.
Garcia, have we confirmed
that this truther's even legit?
GARCIA: Of course I've
confirmed that, and she is.
Melissa Miller has a pretty
popular truther podcast,
especially around Roswell.
She promotes all kinds of conspiracies,
but her cause celebre
is staged shootings.
So she thinks the reason
we have gun violence,
it's been faked by the government
as a pretext to revoke the
second amendment. Nice.
It's another reason not to do this.
Or it's the exact reason to do this.
What was tonight, other
than a staged shooting,
and why is she the only
one willing to cooperate?
Unsubs like to insert themselves
into the investigation.
Profile skews male,
but she could be a partner.
Ok, then, if she isn't involved,
I can get her to talk.
I'm a forensic psychologist.
I'm trained to outwit and outsmart
clinical psychopaths far
more dangerous than her.
But if we're wrong, she's
going to post her podcast.
Then what? Then we're
the next example of fake news.
Look, everybody, give us a second.
You, too, Garcia.
We don't just have egg on our face,
we have blood on our hands.
It's not like these conspiracy theorists
are gonna be quiet.
I am aware of that. I need options.
We're out of them.
The profile says it's a truther,
and only one of them is talking to us.
We have to throw a Hail Mary.
[CELL PHONE DINGS]
Say something. We need to make sure
the levels are good.
I'm Dr. Tara Lewis of the BAU...
No. Say something interesting.
Tell me how you really
feel about truthers.
My audience could use a sense
of the FBI's bias against us.
I got my Ph.D. by taking a theory,
testing it, and then proving my results.
Now, proving my results means
that I take those results
and I turn them over to other scientists
to see if they can replicate them.
And if they can't,
then my theory was wrong.
See, that's science.
A consensus of evidence
that we call truth.
What you do is different.
Oh, no, it's not.
Yes, it is. Because your
theories are unprovable.
Give me one.
Uh, President Obama wasn't born here.
He was born in Kenya.
Perfect. That's perfect.
So, I show you his long-form
birth certificate,
and then you would respond
that it's been faked
because that's how deep
the conspiracy goes.
And then that becomes your argument
against any evidence that I provide.
It's a cognitive trick that keeps you
from having to admit that life is messy.
It's random. Not everything fits
the easy explanation
that a conspiracy gives you.
All right, then. Well, let's
talk about the murders.
When did you first hear about them?
Yesterday. When we were invited in.
GARCIA: It's time to get out our
tinfoil hats, my fine furry friends,
because we are on our way
to Roswell, New Mexico,
aka, ground zero of conspiracy theorists
because of a certain alien
crash... i mean weather balloon.
The sheriff there has had
two suspicious deaths
over the last 48 hours.
Both victims were members
of the truther movement.
Yes, which is a group
of conspiracy theorists
who share their out-there
beliefs online with each other.
No judgment here. Let's look
at our first victim Bryan Behar.
He believed that the fluoride
they put in our drinking water
is a mind-control agent
meant to keep us docile.
He died by drowning.
People drown all the time, you say.
I say not in their own aquariums.
So the M.O. matches his conspiracy.
Is that a coincidence or a choice?
That depends on victim number two.
Uh-huh. That's Carl Lee.
He's a JFK conspiracy nut
who was shot once in the throat.
As anyone who saw
the Zapruder film knows,
that's where the first
bullet struck Kennedy.
Carl Lee we can definitively
classify as a homicide,
but the drowning death... that
could have another explanation.
That's why we'll be treating this
as an equivocal death investigation.
Wheels up in 20.
Back up. What was that term you used?
Equivocal something?
An equivocal death investigation.
It's an investigation
where we consider all options.
It could be a murder,
but it could also be a suicide
or an accident or even natural causes.
Are you saying these
murders weren't murder?
Is that the FBI's official position?
I'm saying we let clues
guide us to a deduction.
We don't jump to conclusions.
But as we were flying here,
our technical analyst
uncovered something unusual.
Right. Your technical analyst.
That would be Penelope Garcia?
Yeah. I looked up your whole
team before coming in here.
Why did you do that?
Because I'm a naturally
suspicious person
who wanted to get
a feel for your methods.
Specifically the illegal
surveillance that the FBI
is willing to resort to to
frame innocent men and women.
As I said, the FBI doesn't frame anyone,
and we certainly don't
do anything illegal.
Well, I guess that depends
on what Garcia found
and how she found it.
So what did she find?
GARCIA: It looks like our two victims
were talking via encrypted texts.
It took a while to break,
and their conversation was short,
but its content
made my perfectly shaped
eyebrows go, “Hmm?”
Carl says to Bryan, “I think I'm close
to finding out who it is.”
to which Bryan says,
“Maybe we should go to the police.”
and Carl says,
“What good would that do?”
Well, that could be motive.
Whatever Carl was close to finding
could have killed him and Bryan.
At first glance, yeah.
But we're talking about
conspiracy theorists here,
and a lot of them suffer
from association fallacy.
Let's say you thought Lyndon Johnson
had JFK killed in order
to escalate the war in Vietnam.
Ok, stop right there.
What?
You guys have a jet?
Yes.
A jet.
Yes.
Black helicopters
surveilling the American people.
No, no, that's ridiculous.
But a little branch of the FBI
has its own private jet.
Ok, one, I never said the FBI doesn't
have black helicopters.
And, two, when people
are being murdered,
we have to respond quickly.
[SCOFFS] A jet.
I can't even.
Sorry. Where were we?
Let's say you thought Lyndon Johnson
had JFK killed in order to
escalate the war in Vietnam.
That's ridiculous.
Everybody knows that...
PRENTISS: No, no.
We're not getting into that again.
Go ahead, Luke.
Uh, my point is, that if you thought
the government could do that,
then you were likely believe that they'd
brought down the towers on 9-11.
Pretty soon you're down that rabbit hole
and you see everything as a plot.
So maybe these guys
weren't into anything.
Maybe they just talked themselves
into a group delusion.
Ok, we should investigate
that when we land.
And since the police
are mentioned so prominently
on the text, they might know
what the victims were looking into.
The Chicago mob, right? Killed JFK.
He gets it.
No. Don't get him started, Matt.
Next, he'll be showing
you YouTube clips.
So I'm sure when you flew in,
they showed you Carl
and Bryan's police record.
They did. And what we saw
were 4 years of reports
that both men were convinced
someone was watching them.
But despite his best efforts,
Sheriff Bowman
was never able to find
any evidence of stalking.
Oh, yeah. 'Cause he tried really hard.
You know what was much more interesting
was what we found when
we walked the crime scenes.
The glass is 3/4 of an inch
thick and that's sturdy.
If you wanted to drown
someone in an aquarium,
that would do the trick.
They said there was a bleach
solution in the water,
so he was probably cleaning it
and his ear buds were in.
Make it easy to sneak up on Bryan.
Unsub wouldn't have
had to work too hard.
Bryan was startled.
He took in water and bleach,
and he was asphyxiated before
he knew what was happening.
How did the unsub get in here?
Hey, Matt, a question for you.
Any evidence of a break-in
at your crime scene?
Hang on, JJ. Let me check.
Any signs of forced entry?
No, sir.
No, none here either.
What I am seeing is an unsub
who covers up his tracks.
It looks like he shot
Carl in the throat...
Bullet was a through and through.
Came out the other side of Carl's neck
and went in the wall.
Dug it out, picked up the casing,
took the gun with him.
So this guy knows how
to clean up after himself
and how to get in and out
of two houses without detection.
JJ, let me call you back.
Looks like an RFID card.
Mm-hmm. What's it go to?
That's the question.
Huh. Well, hello.
Huh.
That gun's missing.
Well, it means the
unsub's no mastermind.
It's been right under
our nose the whole time.
So we went through Carl's meticulous log
of his hardware, and the
missing gun should be here.
It is a Bodyguard 380.
Now, if the unsub found this
in a secret compartment,
then he knows Carl, probably very well.
And based on the fortress
that Carl lived in,
it'd probably be another truther.
No one else could get that close.
And that would explain why there was
no forced entry at Bryan's either.
So when Carl said,
“I'm close to finding out
who it is,” he wasn't talking
about some secret cabal,
he was talking about a friend.
PRENTISS: Someone he was
willing to call the cops on.
We should bring all the
truthers in for questioning.
No, no, that won't work.
They won't cooperate under coercion.
Look, I say we lay all our
cards out on the table.
Let's deliver our profile to them.
Oh, that's risky.
But worth it. Either one of the truthers
points us to the unsub...
Or he shows up himself.
And that brings us up to tonight.
Ballistics confirmed
that the gun that killed Carl
was the one that Doug used on himself.
All the evidence points to Doug Downey
as our killer, except...
Except you don't
have anything tying Doug
to Bryan's drowning.
Melissa, I've been as transparent
as I can possibly be.
Is there anything we've missed?
[SIGHS]
One thing.
But you didn't miss it,
you covered it up.
Specifically, that the sheriff
made us all walk through
a metal detector.
What?
Don't pretend you didn't know that.
And don't pretend you don't know why.
Someone in law enforcement
planted a gun on Doug.
Because what was it that he
was saying earlier tonight?
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
[SHOUTING]
MeliSSA, that doesn't make any sense.
You tell me what's more believable...
A missing gun in a wacky compartment
or the police planted
a Bodyguard 380,
a very popular firearm
in law enforcement, on Doug.
Then, they call their friends
all the way in Quantico
and you guys get on your fancy jet
and come out here to make sure
that the cover-up's complete.
That's not what happened.
Am I your unsub? Yes or no?
You are a person of interest,
just like every other truther
in this building tonight.
That's a yes.
Which is why I'm recording all of this,
to show the world exactly how far
the FBI is willing to go
to cover up the truth.
Ok. Let's take a moment.
I think we've gotten off track.
No, no. No, we're, uh,
we're right where we need to be.
See, I wanted the brilliant
science of behavioral profiling
to provide an answer for all this.
I really did.
But right now, from where I'm sitting,
this crazy conspiracy theorist
is the only one making any sense.
Guys, hold up.
- Can we plug this in somewhere?
- Yes, ma'am.
So this is the metal detector
you had at the legion hall?
- Mm-hmm.
- And you made all
- the truthers walk through it.
- Yep.
And then after that you
brought it back here
to the police stations, you
haven't touched it since?
Sheriff, why didn't you tell us
you were gonna do that?
You told us you didn't
want to spook the truthers.
You also told us
the killer might show up,
so this was for our protection.
Can you tell me I was wrong?
No, sheriff, you weren't wrong,
but it does beg the bigger question.
How the hell did Doug get
a gun through that thing?
I was hoping you could answer that,
you all being the geniuses
with this investigation.
JJ: No, that's not right.
ALVEZ: What do you mean it's not right?
It says it right here.
No, that's not what I saw.
Did that just...
LEWIS: Yeah. Yeah, it did.
What is it?
[BEEP]
How in the world could that happen?
- I think I might know.
- MELISSA: Bullcrap.
Bull crap.
You know, I would use stronger language,
but I don't want this podcast
to get an “explicit” rating.
Well, it's the truth.
Metal detectors require
precise calibration.
Otherwise, they're susceptible
to all kinds of interference.
Photocopiers, Bluetooth,
even fluorescent lighting.
The sheriff was in such a
hurry to get it set up
down at the Legion Hall that he assumed
it would work the same
way it always had,
but it didn't.
I still don't buy it.
Do you know why?
Why what?
Why you don't buy it.
I can tell you.
[EXHALES]
It's called proportionality bias.
You see, it's our natural human instinct
to assume that big events
have big causes.
We don't want to believe
that a lone gunman
killed JFK with a rifle
he bought for 19.99,
or that hijackers brought down 4 planes
using only box cutters.
I mean, there has to be
a better explanation.
We need an answer
that's more satisfying,
but sometimes it just isn't.
You know? Machines break down.
Systems don't work. Life is messy.
It's random.
Fine. Let's just test
your version, shall we?
Let's.
You're saying that Doug snuck a gun
through a metal detector,
a metal detector
he would have no way
of knowing was broken.
Is that your story?
Well, why don't you
tell me a better one.
Not my job.
What my audience wants to hear, however,
is how well your team does yours.
All right, well, while
Agent Prentiss and I
were figuring out the mystery
of the malfunctioning metal detector,
agents Jareau and Simmons
headed to the morgue.
So let's presume Bryan Behar
here died of asphyxiation
from drowning. What I
can't explain is this.
These chemical burns on his face.
Well, he was drowned
in a bleach solution.
Would that do this?
No. This looks like some form
of aerosolized toxin,
but damned if I could
tell you what kind.
And that's still not the
oddest thing I've seen today.
Mr. Carl Lee, shot in the throat,
but covering his wound, this doozy.
The blood matches Mr. Lee.
Myoglobin on the blood says he
was alive when it happened,
and only his prints are on it.
Obviously it's from a book,
but I can't tell which one.
We can.
It's from “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Wow.
Does that mean something to you?
[SCOFFS]
Of course that means something to me.
“The Catcher in the Rye” has been linked
to multiple killers
since it was first published.
And when Mark David
Chapman shot John Lennon,
he said, “read 'Catcher in the Rye.'
that's my statement.”
it was found on
John Hinckley's bookshelf
after he shot Reagan.
Oswald, Manson, Robert Bardo,
they were all obsessed with it.
It was the original brainwashing tool
of the United States Government.
I wouldn't call it that.
Of course you wouldn't.
Because then you'd have to admit
how sophisticated the whole-scale duping
of this nation has become.
I'm not following you.
Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook.
The United States Government
shot up a bunch of empty buildings
and then gathered everything up
and traded it amongst themselves
because that's how
plausible deniability works.
Sandy Hook was staged?
Sandy Hook was staged the worst.
All those actors they
threw in front of cameras
to be grieving parents.
I was screaming at my television set,
“You're lying!”
and if they would lie about that,
then they would absolutely
lie about a metal detector.
So let me make one thing
clear moving forward.
When I say they, I mean you.
Give me one second.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- Son of a...
- [SCREAMING, BANGING]
What the hell kind of outfit
you running here, agent?
You want to talk about it?
No.
It's ok to tap out if you want.
No. Emily, I can do this.
Has she said anything that points
to her involvement in the murders?
Have you gotten any answers out of her?
Maybe it's time
to change up the strategy.
Where's Dr. Lewis?
I'm SSA Jareau. I'm here to talk to you
about your favorite book,
“Catcher in the Rye.”
[LAUGHS] I get it.
You're rotating agents now,
wearing me down
so I can't see your lies.
Is that the game?
I just had some information
Agent Lewis didn't,
but if you don't want to hear it...
Oh, no, I want to hear it.
[DING]
So after we found
such a prominent clue on Carl,
we wanted to study the original text,
so we got a copy of the book.
Apparently, “Catcher in the Rye”
is the local book club
selection this month.
And did you know
that there are two actual...
ALVEZ: ...Brick and mortar
bookstores in Roswell?
But one of the owners
was happy to give me a copy.
What page is it?
Uh, 76. That's what was on Carl.
Ok, here it is. It, uh,
it starts mid-sentence.
“Don't see how he could
like a phony book like that
and still like the one by Ring Lardner.”
No, that's not right.
What do you mean, it's not right?
I have it right here.
That's not what I saw.
PRENTISS: Did that just...
Yeah, see, this page 76 is different.
The page on Carl's throat was annotated.
The publisher bolded terms
and phrases for emphasis.
Well, that would throw the
whole layout of the book off
and then your page 76
wouldn't look like this one.
Ok, there are two editions of the book.
That's common.
But maybe it's not
the page that's important.
Maybe it's the edition.
The devil's in the
pitchforky little details,
my friends.
I matched the formatting
of the text on poor doomed Carl
to a local publisher.
He goes by the name of Bob Orci.
He writes conspiracy-related commentary
for books like “Behold a Pale Horse,”
“Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”
“Mein Kampf.”
books the truthers love.
Right now we need as much
evidence as possible
to prove that Doug is our unsub.
If he bought the book we found on Carl,
it strengthens our case.
Luke, you and Matt,
bring in this publisher.
I'm on it. Garcia, can you
help me out with an address?
Yeah, I'm working on the physical
address of Mr. Orci as we speak.
The thing is, he lives so far out there
that it's not a place
where there are street numbers
on the houses, so the closest single
physical address I can get you is...
Route 3, Greenwood Way?
You know him?
By reputation. He's not a truther.
He's an anarchist. He's dangerous.
How dangerous?
He has fertilizer lining
his place as an explosive.
Prentiss!
Wait. That far out in the desert,
there's no cell service.
You're not gonna reach them by phone.
[COYOTE HOWLING]
ALVEZ: Is that ANFO, Matt?
Yeah.
FBI!
Oh, my God.
[DOOR OPENS]
What's going on? Who are you?
I'm SSA Emily Prentiss of the BAU.
Melissa, you're gonna
want to take a seat.
Oh, God, someone died, didn't they?
What makes you say that?
You guys have had me
waiting in here for hours
while your team tracked down Bob Orci.
What happened?
Are you recording this? You should.
[DING]
Agents Simmons and Alvez
landed at Bob Orci's at 3:37 A.M.
The were very surprised
by what they found.
FBI!
Oh, my God.
Hey, guys, meet Bob Orci.
Weapons down, please.
You were saying...
Wait. So you got there before them.
- How?
- By helicopter.
Not the Bureau's helicopter.
This one belongs to the police force.
What?
There's been a push.
Police forces across the country
have been purchasing
military-grade hardware.
Yeah. Like grenade launchers and tanks.
Roswell doesn't need a tank.
It needs a helicopter. People
get lost in the desert.
Sometimes an FBI agent like me
needs to get to a cabin
in the middle of nowhere
as fast as possible.
Based on your warning, the sheriff and I
landed a mile away
and we came up with a plan.
FBI! Hands up, now!
Now!
Wh-what?! What is...
Hands on your head.
Get on your knees.
Where's the fertilizer, Bob?
The fertili... Uh, it's...
It's under the tarp over there.
- Check it out.
- Yes, sir.
Uh...
No, that's, uh, my...
my organic tomatoes
need special soil, and... and...
Th-that's my vitamin supplements
are in those barrels.
No, wait, wait, wait, wait.
No, please. Please.
I... i swear to you,
I will surrender everything.
Just please don't kill me.
Organic tomatoes.
Yeah.
ANFO stands for
ammonium nitrate fuel oil. Fuel oil.
You can't grow anything with it.
We pointed that out to Bob.
He said that must be why
his tomatoes kept dying.
We searched the whole compound anyway.
There was no bomb.
But Bob Orci
had quite the story to tell.
It's all an act. I'm no hermit.
Yeah, I... I tell these truthers
that I'm some kind of holy fool
and they buy all my stuff.
By “stuff,” you mean your books?
No, the books are a loss-leader.
But the vitamin supplements, oh,
oh, my God, I've made so much money
off the vitamin supplements.
So, “Catcher in the Rye”"
is just the latest
in a long line of crap.
Well, the book itself isn't.
And J.D. Salinger is a genius.
Didn't your read my commentary,
read my notes, annotations?
I tried. You lost me
when you tried to connect
Holden Caulfield to
the Bilderberg Group.
There is no connection.
All you gotta do to fool these morons
is to ask a question that starts with,
“Isn't it interesting?”
like... like...
Like, isn't it interesting
that Holden Caulfield
and Bilderberg Group
both have 15 letters.
Yeah. And then you tag that
with “Wow! Wake up, sheeple,”
you just sold a thousand copies.
We think the killer might have bought
one of your commentaries.
Who'd you sell to in Roswell?
The book group is reading
“Catcher in the Rye”" next month,
so all I was trying to do
is capitalize on that.
And only one guy seemed
to show any interest.
- [DOOR BANGS OPEN]
- FBI!
Oh, my God.
Hey, guys, meet Bob Orci.
Weapons down, please. You were saying...
Carl Lee.
The guy's name was Carl Lee.
So it was Carl's copy.
Doug didn't bring it with him?
Why would Doug put page
76 over Carl's throat?
He didn't.
Only Carl's fingerprints and DNA
were on that page.
Doug never touched it.
You've lost me.
Ever been shot before?
People do weird things
when they're shot.
[GUNSHOT]
[GROANS]
PRENTISS: Carl was slipping into shock,
meaning he had some vague
awareness that he was gonna die
and his brain was short-circuiting.
So that clue that seemed
so important 4 hours ago,
it means nothing.
Life is messy, random.
That's why I sent Agent Jareau
back to the first crime scene.
We needed to take a look at it again
without any preconceptions.
And when she saw the cleaning supplies,
she had an idea.
Specifically, what happens
when you're not careful
how you clean your aquarium?
So she had Garcia do some research.
So let's talk about weird science.
There are certain types of coral
that when they come
into contact with bleach,
release something called a palytoxin.
So the coral, it, like,
emits this aerosol
and then that aerosol causes the throat
and the lungs to close and
the eyes and the skin to burn.
Well, that's the mystery chemical weapon
the M.E. couldn't place.
So let's play this out.
He pours in the bleach,
coral spits out its toxin,
and mother nature does the rest.
[GASPING]
It's not murder.
It's an accident.
We're veering dangerously close
to bullcrap territory.
We could call it murder.
If the profile was Charles Darwin's
theory of natural selection,
we could arrest
the piece of coral, I guess.
Or, we could just accept that life is...
Messy, random. Yeah.
Until it's not.
What does that mean?
Well, that seemingly unimportant book,
there was one additional
detail Bob Orci told us about
that I forgot to mention.
No, I... I didn't forget.
I was holding back for dramatic effect.
Carl Lee. His name was Carl Lee.
And the reason that sticks out
is because he asked me
to write a dedication
on the inside cover of the book.
It's something I add
for an extra 20 bucks.
You know? And sometimes
I use the wild man font
and the truthers all go,
“Oh, wow, look, he actually
wrote stuff in my book.”
Tara, we have something.
Found it, Emily.
What does it say?
“To my darling Melissa,
love always, Carl.”
We were dating. That's not a crime.
So why hide it?
The truther community is small,
and we're gossipy.
Also, we're already convinced
agents like you are watching us.
So Carl and I covered our tracks.
So well, in fact, that the
great and powerful Garcia
is not going to find them.
I believe you.
Which is why we had to rely
on old-fashioned profiling
to figure out this next part.
And it started with a
question you asked first.
Why would Doug kill
himself for no reason?
So, we reconstructed Doug's
suicide to see what we missed.
- So you were there and I was here.
- Right.
And then he was screaming at you,
“I know a false flag
when I see one, bitch.”
and then bang.
No, that's not right.
He said all those things, but not to me.
He was looking at you.
No, no. If someone
made eye contact with me
and called me a bitch, I'd remember.
Maybe he wasn't looking
at either of you.
He was looking between you.
Uh... JJ, you were posted up over there
- for line of sight.
- Yeah.
Ok, there's only one one other woman
in the room he would
have been talking to.
The reason we asked you here,
the only reason, is to listen.
That's all.
So just listen.
Listen. Put the gun down.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- [GUNSHOT]
It all started with Carl's text.
“I'm close to finding out who it is.”
He was talking about Melissa,
as in, “I'm close to finding
out who she's cheating with.”
she was cheating with Doug?
Yes. And when she found out
Carl was onto her, she killed him.
Whoa. Slow down there, partner.
Think about it. It's the oldest
motivation in the book...
Sex. Melissa is cunning
and manipulative,
and she is a psychopath, and a good one.
I mean, she sat there while I
laid out this entire case,
she did not tip a thing.
Now, Doug's prints were on the
gun because of the suicide,
but with Carl, Melissa could
have used gloves, and...
What?
Why is everybody staring at me?
Tara, I want to believe that.
An arrest would relieve a lot of tension
on this case, but...
But we don't have the evidence,
and without the evidence, we're
no better than the truthers.
No better than the truthers.
Melissa...
Thinks that Sandy Hook was staged.
I was there...
That day, and I counseled those parents,
and I saw...
I saw those kids.
So the day that I lose
to someone like her...
That's the day that I quit.
It's biased thinking,
and if we allow it to color our profile
and the arrest falls apart,
we'll be a stain on the Bureau.
Ok, so what, we just...
We just back off on Melissa?
No. We back up our profile.
You have a theory, Tara.
Now prove your results.
Now, once we're inside Melissa's
house, what are we looking for?
Well, maybe she cleaned up
Carl Lee's crime scene.
The gun's accounted for, but the
missing bullet and casing aren't.
Great start. What else?
I admit my bias, out loud,
because I wasn't able to see
what was right in front
of me the whole time.
I thought anyone who believed
in conspiracy theories
had to be deluded. There was
no way they could outsmart me.
And I was wrong. There is a
conspiracy in this case.
And you are at the center of it.
So, allow me to be clear
from this point forward.
I'm going to give you one
chance to tell the truth,
one. Keep in mind we are
already searching your place.
If you lie, if you hold back in any way,
I will know about it,
and I will nail you for it,
all the way to a life sentence.
Wow.
What's the point of this?
I guess there's just
one last thing to say
before I invoke my right to an attorney.
Good luck.
- ROSSI: Anything?
- Melissa's house was spotless.
Zero evidence of her involvement.
How are you guys doing?
Yikes.
Yeah, every time
we try to reason it out,
we keep hitting different walls.
We have to make an arrest
or release all the truthers
from custody.
Give me the version
that makes the most sense.
Ok, well, Doug was holding
the gun that killed Carl,
but there is nothing behaviorally
that points to him being a killer.
And Melissa's the
undiagnosed psychopath,
and Carl was figuring out
that she was cheating.
And as his girlfriend, she would
know where he hid his guns,
and so we... We're thinking this.
Carl and Melissa were fighting.
Psychopaths aren't known
for their small egos
or impulse control,
and so Melissa got angry
and she waits for Carl to turn his back,
- Carl!
- And then bang.
So she cleans up as best as she could,
but now she has to hide what she did.
So we asked the truthers
to listen to our profile,
and she thought, “A-ha!
I'll turn this to my advantage.
“I'll frame my boyfriend,
who is the most likely suspect
if they put this together.”
so she slips the gun into Doug's pocket.
And Doug walks through without incident
because the metal detector is broken.
He doesn't notice the gun in his pocket
until midway through
our profiling and he panics.
What did you put in my pocket?!
Gun! Drop it!
He assumes, like all truthers,
that no one in the government
is gonna believe him,
so his last words aren't to us,
but to Melissa.
I know a false flag when I see one.
- You bitch!
- [GUNSHOT]
That's the version
that makes the most sense.
Even if I buy it, a D.A. won't.
We need more, guys.
Well, the only thing that's left
is the bullet and the casing.
But she could have dumped that anywhere.
No, that's not the only thing.
The podcast.
She... she had us right
where she wanted.
She could have posted the
audio of our conversation
to prove we were
trying to cover this up,
but instead she deleted it.
Which she only would have done
if she had revealed herself somehow.
She didn't say anything incriminating
when I talked to her.
Me neither.
Then it was me. She let something slip,
something she doesn't
want me to remember.
So, what?
Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook.
The United States Government
shot up a bunch of empty buildings
and then gathered everything up
and traded it amongst themselves,
because that's how
plausible deniability works.
[EXHALES]
She traded it.
Traded what?
The bullet and the shell casing.
She took the evidence and she
gave it to someone else.
And you know this because...
Think about a conspiracy
theory like a pathology.
What disgusts her, what she
fears most in other people,
that's the action she'll copy
to justify her own belief system.
So who has the bullet?
Who else?
The unsub we've been looking for
is Melissa Miller, and we think
she's made one of you an accomplice
to her murder of Carl Lee.
ROSSI: An unwitting accomplice.
We aren't keeping you in custody.
Anyone who wants to leave can,
and everyone that wanted representation
has a lawyer present.
All we want is for you
to listen to our theory.
After Carl Lee's murder,
Melissa approached one of you
and she told you
that the U.S. Government
was going to frame
both Bryan and Carl's murder
on the truthers.
Right on cue, we showed up.
So, she gave you a box or bag,
told you not to look inside,
said it was all part of our cover-up.
What she gave you was material evidence
of Carl's murder.
Now, you can think what you want of us,
we are not here to frame anyone.
We're not the murderers. She is.
Did anyone accept something
like this from her?
I did.
It's... it's at my house.
You know what that is, Melissa?
That is a magic bullet.
Stand up.
Melissa Miller, you are under arrest
for the murder of Carl Lee.
You have the right to remain silent.
You have the right to an attorney.
♪ So we faked ourselves on the ending ♪
♪ and breathe in their lies ♪
♪ while the water brings no cleansing ♪
♪ just reflects strangers' eyes ♪
LEWIS: “Everyone is entitled
to his own opinion,
but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
♪ Truth was too hard to mention ♪