On tonight’s special two-hour finale of Criminal Minds, the BAU agents deal with a crisis at a federal bank and one of their own is taken hostage.
No Longer a Day Off
It’s Saturday and all of our BAU members have the day off. Unfortunately, Will does not and has to go into work. Meanwhile, a trio of bank robbers — calling themselves the “face cards,” one identified only as “the Queen” — hit the Colonial Liberty Bank. Will and his partner respond to the robbery just as the bank robbers are leaving and gunfire erupts. Will’s partner is killed and one of the robbers is shot. The BAU agents arrive on the scene and identify the male robbers as the Stratton brothers, Chris and Oliver. Oliver dies shortly after the shooting and Chris wants the man who killed his brother to enter the bank.
Bank Goes Boom
JJ (A.J. Cook) does not want Will to become a hostage, but Chris kills someone and claims he will kill another hostage every 60 seconds until Will enters the bank. Will does as he is told and Chris responds by shooting him. Luckily, Will was wearing a vest and Chris did not go for the kill-shot, so Will is still alive. JJ, however, is not happy that her boyfriend has been shot and she gets Hotch (Thomas Gibson) to authorize an entry into the bank. While the BAU is setting up to go in, an injured Will works with one of the hostages on an escape plan. Will waits until “the Queen” leaves and then distracts Chris so the rest of the hostages can get out. As soon as the hostages are clear, the agents prepare to enter the bank but Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) sees something and calls them off at the last minute, just before a bomb goes off. Apparently, the explosion is the UnSubs’ exit strategy.
The Chase
JJ and Morgan (Shemar Moore) enter the bank after the explosion, looking for Will and the missing Prentiss (Paget Brewster). They find Prentiss easily enough and she seems fine, so Morgan and JJ follow the UnSubs’ path out of the bank. The UnSubs escape the scene and they take Will as a hostage. They need to keep Will alive, so they stop and force a paramedic to give Will medical assistance. Not long later, “the Queen” gets a call and she kills Chris because he is no longer necessary.
Don’t be a Hero
The agents know “the Queen” is working with someone else and the final UnSub turns out to be the “hostage” who assisted Will earlier, Matthew Downs. Without knowing it, Will told Matthew exactly what his weakness was and the UnSubs threaten Will’s family to gain his cooperation. Matthew forces Will to leave Henry with “the Queen,” whom we now know as Izzy, while they set out for Union Station. Meanwhile, JJ figures out that the UnSubs know her address, but she manages to take Izzy down before Henry is harmed.
The other team members arrive at Union Station, but Matthew has already strapped Will to a bomb and Prentiss has to disarm it before they both are killed. Luckily, Prentiss is awesome and she saves the day. Matthew is killed and Izzy is arrested, bringing the crisis to a close. Once they are reunited, Will and JJ decide to get married, so Rossi (Joe Mantegna) throws them a wedding, complete with JJ’s mom and all of their friends in attendance.
Emily’s Goodbye
The moment we are all waiting for happens in a sad yet subtle way. During the hostage situation, Emily gets a very enticing job offer and she later admits to Morgan that she has been thinking of leaving for a while now. She loves the team, but she cannot simply return to her old life as if nothing happened. They table the discussion so they can celebrate JJ’s wedding, but Emily makes a point to dance with each of her team members and it seems like she uses the alone time to tell them that she is leaving.
Megan Cole
Contributing Writer
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
