Trama

A man is threatening to kill a doctor's son and is killing a man a day until he is successful. Meanwhile, Hotch's absence is noticed by Prentiss.

The BAU, working on less than four hours sleep after finishing the case of the abducted homeless people taken across to Canada, are called into their next case. A trauma surgeon by the name of Dr. Barton received a note from someone signing it "LC." stating that his fifteen year old son Jeffrey will be killed. If LC. is not allowed to carry out this mission, he will instead kill one other person every day until Jeffrey is dead. Two surrogates for Jeffrey, both Hispanic men, are already dead. Dr. Barton has no idea who LC. is or why he or his son would be targeted. Rossi, J.J. and Morgan keep watch over Jeffrey, who sneaked out of the house to go to school, while Reid and Prentiss go over Dr. Barton's medical files with him. Prentiss, figuring they need an extra pair of eyes to go over the several hundred files, decides to try and find Hotch, who has not been answering his cell phone. Arriving at Hotch's apartment, Prentiss finds that he is not there, but that there are signs of foul play. When Prentiss finds him, he is not in good condition. But she does discover the meaning of LC. and understands who the unsub's real target is. Ultimately, the entire team is notified that Hotch is in the hospital with multiple non-life threatening stab wounds. Although the person who dropped him off at the hospital was unseen, the team knows that it was George Foyet aka the Reaper. Hotch is worried that the stabbings inflicted by the Reaper were just a warning for a more cruel and perhaps deadly attack to come.—Huggo

A man is targeting an emergency room doctor, he plans on killing his child. The BAU must work together to figure out who sent the threat to the doctor. However, Prentiss discovers Hotch has gone missing and she soon realizes that George Foyet aka the Reaper has ambushed Hotch at his apartment, but something more alarming is coming to Hotch when Foyet plans on going after his ex-wife, Haley and his son, Jack.—dawsonpersi

Last season on "Criminal Minds:" the Reaper did some reaping and people got hurt. The team tracked down the killer -- a.k.a. George Foyet -- but the bad guy managed to escape. When we last saw him, the Reaper was pointing an awfully big gun at Hotch. Then BAM! Fade to black.

Fade up on Derek, walking purposely through a crime scene. The entire team shows up and wonders why they've been called. "No disrespect, but I don't understand why you need us here," Derek tells Det. Walker. Walker explains that an unidentified killer has sworn to kill a person a day until a Dr. Barton's son is killed. The killer has also left the initials "LC" at a pair of crime scenes. "Unless Dr. Barton puts his son in harm's way, we're going to keep having a victim a day," Spencer says. Emily wonders where Hotch might be. The boss won't answer his cell phone, so J.J. leaves a voice mail.

The team (minus Hotch, of course) visits Dr. Barton, who is keeping his 15-year-old son Jeffrey in his room. "Two people are dead already," Rossi says. "Whoever sent that note is obviously serious." Unfortunately, Dr. Barton doesn't know who would want to kill the boy. "Do you know anyone with the initials LC?" Derek asks. Nadda. "I'm sorry," Dr. Barton says. Rossi requests a record of all the surgeries the doctor has recently performed. Suddenly, Dr. Barton gets a call from his son. Jeffrey has left the house. Derek races upstairs. The teen is gone.

One opening credits sequence later, we see Jeffrey walking nervously through his high-school hallways (dude escapes and he goes to school?). Rossi, Derek and J.J. head to the school and convince the principal to lock up all the doors -- but not evacuate as it would potentially tip off the killer. "You need to get Jeffrey out of class as casually as possible," Derek says. She does -- and Derek has a heart-to-heart with the boy. "Do you think somebody is trying to kill me to get back at him?" Jeffrey asks. It's possible. Back at Dr. Barton's home, Emily and Spencer go through a stack of files, which have been sent over by Garcia. "Jeffrey is leaving school in five hours," Jeffrey says. "There's no way we can get through all these patients in time." Emily agrees and decides to go get Hotch as they need his big, bad brain. Seconds later, Emily is standing outside the supervisor's apartment. She opens the door to find a bullet hole in the wall and a blood stain on the floor. Uh oh.

One nail-biting commercial break later, Garcia gets a frantic call from Emily. "Something has happened to Hotch," she says. "There's blood, but I can't be sure whose it is." And one other thing: no one but Spencer can know about this. "They can't be distracted," Emily explains. She places a call to Spencer, who instructs her to take careful notes for later profiling. In the meantime, he has to concentrate on the Barton case. Soon, Spencer and Dr. Barton have the huge pile of files narrowed down to 10 possible cases. "It's about choice," Spencer theorizes. "He's forcing you to play God with your son because the last time you had a choice, your decision devastated him." But what did the good doc do?

Back at Hotch's apartment, Emily gets a worried call from Garcia. "Baby girl" has checked all the local hospitals and discovered something rather disturbing: a John Doe was dropped off by someone claiming to be agent Derek Morgan. Clearly, the Reaper is playing games. It all dawns on Emily -- and she rushes to the hospital.

Spencer, in the meantime, is continuing to run down recent patients with Dr. Barton. The concerned father suddenly has a brainstorm: a few months back he declined to operate on a car crash victim who arrived at the hospital already brain dead. The patient's name was Jason Meyers. Spencer calls Garcia, who does a quick search. Turns out the boy was only recently taken off life support. "He was declared dead three days ago," Garcia says. The dead boy's dad, a Patrick Meyers, blamed the doctor for not attempting to operate. Spencer asks Garcia to print out a photo and have it sent to the school ASAP. This Patrick Meyers just might be the unsub.

Cut to the hospital, where we find Emily standing over an unconscious Hotch. Our beloved, straight-laced agent has been seriously injured, but clings to life. Emily then looks at Hotch's chart. It's signed LC. What the heck? She calls Spencer, explaining that LC stands for "living children." Asks Spencer: "What if the unsub is trying to tell Dr. Barton that HE is actually the target and he's going to leave his son without a father?" That's just insane enough to make perfect sense. Unfortunately, Dr. Barton has just left the house to go pick up his son! Spencer rushes outside to see Patrick Meyers standing in the front yard with a gun. Our beloved boy genius DIVES toward the good doc -- just as Mr. Meyers FIRES! Spencer is hit. Could two members of the team be down?

A few excruciatingly long words from our sponsors later, we come back to the lawn to find Spencer has been shot in the leg. He pulls his own gun and points it at the killer. "Mr. Meyers, it's over," he says. "Dr. Barton did not kill your son. Your son was killed by a car ... so drop the gun, please." But the man won't listen. He raises his gun to shoot Barton, so Spencer SHOOTS Meyers in the stomach. Suddenly, a police cruiser and ambulance come screaming into the driveway. Dr. Barton springs into action, trying to stop the bleeding and save the man who tried to kill him. The team also arrives, reuniting Jeffrey with his dad. All's well that ends well, right? Nope. Spencer breaks the secret bad news. "Something's happened to Hotch," he says.

The team high tails it to the hospital, where Hotch has awoken. The boss recounts his encounter with the Reaper. They soon discover that the killer took a page from Hotch's address book -- one containing the address of Haley Hotchner. Hotch's family, including son Jack, could be in danger! Derek calls Garcia, telling her to send a SWAT unit to the Hotchner address immediately. Moments later, the unit storms the house -- led by Rossi, J.J. and Derek, of course. They find Haley doing laundry. She explains that Jack is at a friend's house. "Call for Jack," Derek says. "Tell him I'm on my way to pick him up." The mother and son are safe, thank goodness.

Back at the hospital, Hotch is having a FLASHBACK to his terrifying alone time with the Reaper (bottom line: the Reaper fire a shot into the wall to scare Hotch, but it didn't work; the Reaper also loves to taunt and stab). Just then, Haley enters. "They said the Marshal service is putting us into protective custody," she says. Hotch apologizes and explains that he can't know where they're going lest the Reaper returns to interrogate (and taunt and stab) some more. "I will catch this man," Hotch pledges. Then little Jack enters. In a tearful scene, the normally icy cool Hotch struggles to be strong in front of his scared boy. They say goodbye.

As the episode closes, Hotch faces Rossi. The latter explains to the former what went down this very morning with Dr. Barton and son. "No other group in the world could have pulled off what your team did in a matter of hours," Rossi explains. "I'm telling you: We'll get him." Hotch doesn't look convinced. Or maybe it's the painkillers.