Trama

A rash of startling teen suicides in a small Wyoming town is the focus of a BAU investigation.

In Uinta County Wyoming, two sets of two teens apiece commit suicide by hanging in their respective homes on consecutive Fridays. The kids showed no prior signs of suicidal tendencies. Although the BAU do not deal with suicides, JJ talks Hotch into the team taking the case as she can feel that there is something more going on than just suicides. Being a Wednesday, the BAU have two days to figure out what's going on before the next potential suicides. Initial investigations show that all the kids were model students. Upon inspection of their computers however, they were all participating in an on-line "choking" game, the choking phenomenon said to be akin to a drug-less high. The BAU try to warn both parents and teenagers in the area about the site and not to participate in the game, but know that they still need to track down the unsub who set up the site. Their investigation takes them to a family dealing with a death among their own.—Huggo

JJ informs Hotch about a case regarding teenagers killings themselves on a Friday night. The team, including Penelope, head to Wyoming to investigate the mysterious deaths of the teenagers. Penelope must figure out who has created the choking website. Initially, the team assumes that a teenager is causing the murders, they soon discover the person responsible for the murders is an adult and he is filming the teen's deaths. This case proves be quite difficult for JJ, after losing her older sister when she was eleven years old.—dawsonpersi

We open with teenagers in their rooms. We're shown pictures around their rooms that show that they're all happy kids with lots of friends, so what happens next doesn't make any sense- they hang themselves. The next thing we know, parents are breaking into their rooms through locked doors to find their dead children.

We know from previous episodes that JJ has a sister that killed herself. When she gets the call asking for help, she takes it very seriously. She, better than anyone, knows that something isn't quite right here. Suicidal teens act much differently than these ones do, AND last Friday, two kids hung themselves at the exact same time in the exact same way. The Friday before that, the same thing. JJ convinces Hotch to check it out. They're not on any other cases right now, and it's a Wednesday. The team has two days to figure out if these are suicides or homicides, and if it's the latter, two days to stop it from happening again. Hotch admits that even if they are suicides (the choice of words "even if" suggests he already thinks they may be homicides), there's definitely something wrong here.

Before the team gets on the jet, we see someone suspicious collecting discs labeled with the names and dates of the dead teens. The person adds them to a STACK of what must be twenty discs.

In the plane, we see that Hotch has brought Garcia along. She didn't understand why, at first, but Hotch explained that one of the aspects of an equivocal death investigation when suicide is a probability is an indirect personality assessment. For these internet generation kids, that involves searching their computers for personal data. There should be a gold mine of valuable information on them. If they committed suicide, evidence of it will likely be in their cyber world. Garcia isn't too happy about snooping through dead kids' computers. "This plane seldom makes pleasure trips," Rossi says. From there, the team goes over victimology. All four kids were decent students from different neighboring towns, but went to the same school within the same county. They were active in sports and community, with intact families, no mental disorders, and no precipitating events. And beside proximity, there was no obvious connections between any of them, which ruled out an overt suicide pact. Spencer mentions that the behavior is usually very telling in the last few days leading up to the suicide. JJ knows every detail of said behavior, even one that Prentiss didn't know. Prentiss doesn't seem to know what happened to JJ's sister, but Hotch certainly does. He's sympathetic to her. Still, it's evident enough that she has first hand experience with it for those on the plane that don't know.

In the next scene, the team pulls up to the Sheriff's Department in Uinta County, Wyoming. They meet with Sheriff Rhoda Samuels. From there, the team splits up to interview the parents of the most recent victims (Trish Leake and Ryan Krauss). Ryan wasn't hiding anything in his room, like drugs or other substances. He had a girlfriend. He did well in school and even had a letter from the football coach wanting him to play in varsity next year. Ryan didn't have a personal computer, but the family had one that they shared. His parents were more than happy to allow Garcia to access it off-site. They didn't believe that Ryan killed himself. Trish Leake was very similar. She did well in school and was excited to graduate and go to college. Her parents said she was a very private girl. Profiling her room showed that she was very comfortable at home. Her diary didn't show any signs of being suicidal or depressed. She even had a boyfriend. Trish had a laptop that they were able to take and bring back to Garcia to look over. After some searching, Garcia finds that both kids were on a website called "The Choking Game" the night they died. Reid explains that it's referred to as "The Good Kid's High" because it makes you light headed and gives you a sense of euphoria without the use of drugs. They found a voice clip on the website. The voice said "Go on, do it. I dare you. We all do." Someone has been orchestrating this. Not only is it a game, but whoever set up the website turned it into a competition, pitting local schools against other schools. The team wanted to take the website down, but they couldn't. If they did, they'd lose their only way of tracking the unsub, and the unsub would only re-post the website again but in a more covert fashion.

The team gave the profile. The unsub responsible may be a teenager. He's a loner, he's withdrawn, and has a very low self-esteem. His only form of interaction is online. He engages in an activity that draws attention to himself, yet alienates himself against his peers. In real life, he considers himself a loser, but on the internet, he feels powerful and in control. He's choking himself and daring other kids to do it. There's no way he doesn't know that he's getting them killed. This is most likely a kind of reckless homicide.

From there, JJ holds a conference with as many parents as possible. Reid and Morgan head to the local high school to explain to the kids how dangerous it is. After terrifying the class with Spencer's super brains and causing them to wonder what planet he's from, as well as making them all question their life decisions, a goth boy in the back of the class makes a run for it. But it's okay- Morgan is there to tackle him. They notice something- under his wide, chainmail choker, he has bruising of all different colors. Different colors means multiple different stages of healing. In other words, multiple injuries. There's no telling how much his brain has suffered.

They take the kid to the ER, where we found out that his name is Christopher Summers. His father, Wilson, comes to pick him up. He explains that Christopher's mother died a few years back, and he's been dressing in black ever since. He spends every waking moment on the computer. Christopher sounds like a pretty likely candidate for our unsub.

Cut to a scene of Garcia and JJ leaning over a computer. Garcia says that there's been no activity on the site all night. It's not Friday yet, though.

In the next scene, we see Wilson handing over Chris's computer to the sheriff. Wilson tells the sheriff that she's making a mistake. Chris is a good kid. As they leave the room, the camera pans to a stack of CDs on the nearby bookshelf. The same stack of CDs we saw in the opening!

Next, we see Reid and Morgan interrogating Chris. He's not very engaged, and it's not going much of anywhere. As Prentiss and Hotch watch, Garcia comes in with Christopher's background check. They've moved three times in the last two years. No wonder why he's a loner. He has no peer support.

In the next scene, we see Garcia going through Christopher's computer. She is very impressed with what she finds. His computer has amazing security and a fantastic set up. Every attack she launches on the computer is shot down immediately. Morgan and Reid come out of the interrogation room looking exasperated. "Hope you got a plan B," Morgan tells Hotch. He does. He sends Garcia in to speak with the kid. He'll be able to relate to her better than anyone else on the team. Things go well, until Mr. Summers comes in with Hotch. He says that he's failed his son enough times, so he's gotten him a lawyer. There's nothing more Garcia can do. On his way out, Christopher slides some skin with Garcia and pounds it. In her hand, he left her his earring, which she had complimented. "BTW, I do miss my mom," he tells her.

Cut to the team gathered around some case files, going over what happened to Mrs. Summers. She was sick quite a lot. His father brought her into the E.R. repeatedly. She's described as being violently ill each time. She would spend a few days in the I.C.U., have a miraculous recovery, and then go home, but the cycle was repeated over and over again. There was no official diagnosis or discernible cause. It's consistent with a textbook case of Munchausen by Proxy. Meanwhile, Garcia monitored the website. Four more videos had already gone up. Reid gave her a list of potential passwords that he had worked up. She said that none of them fit. "No. When I talked to him, there was something pathetic about him. Not criminal. He said he misses his mom. Wait, what's his mom's name?" She asked. "Cynthia Summers," Reid replied. She typed the name in. Sure enough, that was his password. From there, Garcia shuts down the main source, but kids are still posting videos through independent servers. The team looks over Christopher's E.R. reports. He had that same layered bruising on his sternum that was on his neck. It's consistent with the effects of C.P.R. They look at the announcements written by the administrator on the website. It profiles as two people- one teen and one adult, posting under the same screen name. Christopher is being manipulated by an adult. Mr. Summers works for the fire department as an E.M.T. He knows how to perform C.P.R. He was poisoning his wife, and finally it caused her death. He's been choking Christopher and then reviving him- repeatedly. He's been posing as a classmate and challenges the kids to join the game. Then he bumps up the stakes and gets the kids to use riskier methods. He works on Friday nights. He's not just collecting video tapes. He's there to resuscitate the kids when their parents call 911. His Munchausen's has evolved. The team realizes that Christopher is in danger. He's the only one that can testify against him.

The team hurries to the Summers' home, but they're not there. Instead, they find Mr. Summers' C.D. collection, which contain videos of the teens strangling themselves. The team quickly does a behavior breakdown. Mr. Summers moved them most likely when things boiled over for him, for example, what's happening now. So they would switch towns and he would start over with a new sadistic M.O. Christopher knows that this is a pattern. In his mind, there's no way out- except...by suicide. Hotch quickly asks Garcia if Christopher did anything that suggested he was giving up. Yes. He gave her his pirate's earring. They need to find the pair fast. Christopher wants to kill himself, and Wilson wants to kill Christopher. Everybody has it out for poor Christopher! The team knows that before they skip town, the father is going to try and download the new videos for the night, and he won't leave without them. Garcia is already on it. She replaced the website with a phishing website. As soon as Wilson logs on, he'll be rerouted to Garcia's website and she can capture his information. Prentiss deducts that this is all about the mother. The cemetery would be a place of refuge for the son, and a body disposal site for the father. Christopher would willingly go there with his father. Still, the team knows that Summers needs a power source to download the videos. The sheriff informs them that the cemetery has a chapel there.

Cut to the Christopher and Wilson in the chapel. Wilson throws a rope over a beam above their heads. "You know the drill," he says. "This won't take long."

Outside, the team is pulling up. They recognize Wilson's car out front. Garcia calls. Wilson is logging onto the phishing site as they speak, and she has his information. He's trying to download the videos, but all she's giving him is snow. The screen cuts through a series of shots as we watch the team flood the chapel. Wilson has his hands wrapped tightly around Christopher's throat. Morgan points his gun on him, and he lets go easily. Christopher falls forward on the pew and hangs at the end of the rope. Prentiss hurries over and unwraps it from around his neck. Christopher comes to, in time to have a glaring contest with his dad before Hotch hauls Wilson away. Outside, they load Christopher into an ambulance and the sheriff thanks the team.

On the plane, Emily explains the story behind a star puzzle. Spencer doesn't get. But he solves the puzzle no problem, despite Emily saying that it's pretty much impossible. The others tell her that she should try playing poker with him. Or chess. Or go. Meanwhile, in the little kitchen on the plane, Hotch and JJ have a heart to heart. She tells him about the necklace her sister gave her right before she killed herself.

The end.