The team heads to Palm Springs, California where the torso of a body is found in a dumpster, the unsub murderer probably intending that it never would have been found and if so the decapitation a possible counter-measure to not be able to identify the victim. The BAU is called in the possibility that is related to a still unsolved serial murder case in DC from 2004. The Palm Springs authorities are able to identify the victim as twenty-eight year old Paul Mastriano, who was killed after a night at the bar, his drinking which was apparently the cause of his marriage breaking up. Shortly before the BAU's arrival in Palm Springs, a second torso is discovered in the same neighborhood, that victim eventually identified as Brent Miller - similar physical type to Mastriano - who, although unmarried, had just gone through a break-up and was drowning his sorrows in a bar the evening before. The BAU suspects that the victims were targets of opportunity at the bar, who were probably slipped the date rape drug. When a third torso is discovered - eventually identified as a gay man named Dale Ericsson - the team members believe the unsub is devolving but showing more of his true colors: that he is gay, that the murders are meant to scare the gay community, and that he had long harbored a kill fantasy but had been able to redirect that sense of control in some other method in his life, perhaps that control in a personal relationship. They are concerned that the ultimate victim may be the unsub's partner, especially if that person does not return under the unsub's control. Through this case, Reid is concerned about his mother who is still living with him, and this case which he is using as a means to focus his thoughts more objectively on a long term plan for the two of them.
—Huggo