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Machismo

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"Machismo" is the nineteenth episode of Season One of Criminal Minds.

Summary[]

The BAU is requested to assist on a case in Mexico to determine if there is a serial killer targeting elderly women in the town of a police captain who attended one of Gideon's seminars.

Full Summary[]

In Allende De Sol, Mexico, they are celebrating the day of the dead.  A man comes to the cemetery and is visibly intoxicated.  He goes past them and into the house, and his uncle, Diego, approaches the man, named Miguel. He goes into the house and the family tells him that he is unwelcomed, so he leaves, despite his sister’s objections. As he walks off, the daughter and mother spot a young man watching them from his car. 

Later, the mother is crying and hears a knock on the door.  Inviting them in, she gives them a drink and admits needing help around the house.  But when she turns, she is blindsided as the unsub comes at her with a knife.

Back in Quantico, Hotch comes down with Jack, who is crying.  Hailey and her sister are in the dining room, and there is a sign saying ‘happy birthday daddy,’ above them.  He gets a call, which Hailey answers.  He fails at getting Jack to stop crying, but when he passes him off to Hailey’s sister, he automatically calms down.  Hailey comes back in, handing the phone to him, stating that it’s ‘his wife.’

Gideon tells him that there’s a case, but he knows Hotch is taking time off.  He comes back in and gives her a guilty look. Hailey insists that he go in.  At the bureau, in the conference room, JJ informs the team of Lupe Trejo, a 62 year old woman who was stabbed in the face, chest, and genitals. They say that there are 11 other elderly women victims. While the government doesn’t really want their help, they want them to fly down, and tell the rest of the country that the son who is in custody, is responsible for the one-time killing. Hotch realizes it’s not going to be a simple briefing, and considers calling Hailey, but Gideon tells him to call her from the car.

Gideon, Elle, Reid, Morgan, and Hotch are taken to the scene of the last crime.  The officer in charge, Captain Navarro, says that they have outdated fingerprinting kits, but didn’t bother testing the glasses, because he doubted the killer drank the tamarind water; a sweet drink he associated with a woman being given, while a man would have drank tequila or beer.

While Gideon and Reid search the mothers’ bedroom, Morgan and Elle look at the daughters, where there had been jewellery that was stolen.  When they get back to the police station, they go over the case before talking to Miguel.  Gideon points out that Miguel is gay, and he avoids him, stating that he doesn’t speak English.

Hotch confronts Navarro about Miguel, stating that he knew about the young man’s sexuality, and that they aren’t going to be pawns in some political game.  Navarro says that he will do what he can to make sure the women of his city are protected, and they are his only hope.

They speak to Rosa, Miguel’s sister, and she admits that there was a fight about Miguel’s sexuality, as well as how Miguel’s friend, and lover, Roberto, was out there waiting in his car, but Miguel didn’t see him.

They meet with Roberto, and he admits that while he did go there, Lupe was trying hard to accept the relationship.  He asks what they saw.  Roberto saw a woman with a badge and papers; a social worker going house to house.  Navarro goes to check for social workers while they run a background on Roberto.  Garcia calls and confirms that one of the drinkers was male and one was female.

Reid comes to the conclusion that being a social worker is a common ruse, and that maybe the person that killed Lupe was cross-dressing to gain access and trust from the victim. They give the profile to the cops:  a cross-dresser who used to have committed sex crimes, but when he couldn’t perform, he then started to murder the women.  Navarro is pulled away and told that there is another victim, a 67 year old woman. The daughter of the victim is questioned by Elle and Morgan. There was a bead from a necklace that was left behind, and when asked, they find out that the necklace belonged to the daughter. 

Back at the station, the cops rounded up all of the crossdressers. The district attorney general comes to the station, telling the FBI to go home after the scene that was caused because of the roundup.  Navarro tells them not to worry about her, and asks for help in prepping himself to talk to the media, to appeal to the community for help.

When out talking to women, Elle gets a notification that a woman has information. She speaks to her alone, and the woman admits that a coward raped her.  He attacked her from behind, but when she turned and scratched him, she noticed he was wearing a dress.  She called him a pathetic woman, and he ran off.  It was two years ago. 

The team discusses the case, and nearly half a dozen more women come in, all led by the previous woman, claiming to have been raped by the same man.

Somewhere in an unknown place, someone is putting on lipstick and saying ‘hola’ in a female voice.  They get angry and punch the mirror before going to a living room and petting the hair of an unknown woman who is sitting, watching tv.

At the station, the officers are talking to the women who have been assaulted.  They were all attacked from behind, and had a knife held to their backs, before being driven out to the desert, raped, and then when finished, he asks ‘how did i do?’

One of the officers going over the forms, points out that four of the women work at the same factory.  They talk to the woman who runs the plant and gives him the profile.  They ask to look over the employee records.  They narrow down the profile and ask the manager again. When they ask her if he’s ever asked ‘how did i do’ that strikes a cord.  Pablo Vargas, the floor manager of plus sizes. 

When they go to his apartment, no one answers, so they raid it.  Inside the living room, the tv is on, but the person sitting in front of it is a skeleton.  The woman has been dead for a while, but she’s wearing Ana’s necklace.  On the wall, are copies of the employee badges of his rape victims. 

When they go back to the station and look at the charted names of the victims with the murders, Navarro realizes that the names match.  The mothers who are being murdered are the mothers of the women who were raped, and he’s doing it in the same order. 

They go to the last victim’s mothers’ house, but don’t find anyone inside, only a trail of blood.  Morgan and Elle follow it to the back, where someone is passed out on the ground. Morgan goes to them and when they turn over, it’s Pablo Vargas, the rapist.   The victims come from the shadows, all having bloodied weapons. They realized who it was and what was happening, and beat, then castrated him.

When they all go back to the station, district attorney general Sanchez is talking to the women.  She approaches Navarro and he asks if the women are to be charged.  Sanchez says the women were protecting their homes. Navarro is relieved, and leads the team down to their cars.  He says that he wants to start a BAU in his district, and Gideon tells him that it’ll take a lot of training.

Guest Cast[]

Referenced Criminals[]

Bookend Quotes[]

  • Aaron Hotchner: Anthony Brandt wrote, "Other things may change us, but we start and end with family."
  • Aaron Hotchner: Mexican proverb: "The house does not rest upon the ground, but upon a woman."

Trivia[]

  • "Machismo" is a Spanish word for "macho", which means: "a strong sense of masculine pride".
  • The episode's unsub has some similarities to Norman Bates, the fictional serial killer from the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho - Both killed their victims by stabbing them, both dressed as women during their murders and both kept the skeletal bodies of their own mothers at their homes.
  • This episode marks the first of four times the BAU has gone to another country to investigate a case. The others are:

Notes[]

  • The BAU team makes the connection that the unsub kills the mothers of the raped women by matching their last names; for example, the first rape victim is called "Julia Torres Morales" and her mom is "Elena Gutiérrez Torres". However, in Mexico (in all Spanish-speaking countries, actually), married women tend to keep their last name instead of replacing it with their husband's, and people typically use both of their parents' last names in their full name (in Julia's case, "Torres" would be her father's last name and "Morales" her mother's). So either the mother should have as her first last name "Morales" or her name should be "Elena Gutiérrez De Torres", which is the only way married women use their husband's last name. This was likely just an error on the writer's part.
Criminal Minds Episodes
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