SPOILERS
“To A Better Place” was a nice warm-up kind of episode, not
too over-the-top to get both the viewers and the team back into the swing of
things. While not as heart-pounding as last week’s, there were still some
moments I enjoyed.
The unsub this week is killing girls and leaving them in old
suitcases, extremely influenced by his grandmother and his lack of a mother. He
has been able to curb his violent impulses his whole life until his grandma
suddenly dies and he is left alone. Yet he is still hearing her voice in his
head and imagines she is still there. She is guiding his actions and decisions;
he wants to ask out a fellow coffee shop worker, yet she disapproves. After he
asks her out and takes her to meet his grandma, who is obviously not there, she
wants to leave him. He snaps and tries to kill her, but Spence gets there in
time to stop him. It’s revealed his mother never left him like he thought, and
his grandma had killed her in trying to stop her from leaving.
It’s one of the episodes where you end up feeling a little
bad for the unsub. His whole life has been built on the lie of a memory of
something that never even happened. All he wants is a mother, someone stable,
someone who won’t leave him. And even though he goes about it the wrong way, it’s
still something a little bit different from many other unsubs.
 |
| Spence is back on the team. |
Another big part of the episode is Spence getting reinstated
into the team. He passes everything and is allowed back in, but only if for
every 100 days he works, he takes 30 off. He doesn’t like that idea but he goes
with it because otherwise he wouldn’t be allowed back at all. Emily helps him
out a little too, by arranging for him to teach lectures on his month off. He
is told that he will be watched carefully; the last time they let someone back
in after a situation like his, he acted irrationally and dangerously in a
hostage situation. I found it unsurprising, then, that at the end of the
episode, Spence finds himself the lone agent in a hostage situation, where he
has to diffuse the situation and get everyone out safely while waiting for the
rest of the agents. He is able to keep calm, though, and everyone gets out
safely. Spence reflects on his time in prison being a good thing. Germs don’t
bother him as much now. He’s taking baby steps. So far, so good, in his
recovery.
9/10
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