"Persuasion" is the seventeenth episode of Season Nine and the 203rd overall of Criminal Minds.
Summary[]
When two mysteriously drowned female bodies are discovered in the Las Vegas desert, the BAU tries to figure out the true cause and motive for the murders. Meanwhile, Reid tries to contact his mother.
Guest Cast[]
- Gregory Bach - Olsen
- David Clennon - Marvin Caul
- Kayla Crance - Renee Sheffield
- Courtney Cunningham - Frida Bancroft
- Travis Hammer - Elijah Hall
- Keisuke Hoashi - Doctor John Chen
- Ashton Holmes - Finn Bailey
- Michael Irby - Cesar Jones
- Olga Pikhienko - Herself[1]
- Darren Romeo - Himself[2]
- Mark Sande - Bill
- Susan Santiago - Detective Solana Ramirez
- Sheila Shaw - Irma
- Karen Teliha - Gladys
- Keelin Woodell - Sarah Renfield
Music[]
- "Jackhammer Manifesto" by Blue Stahli
Bookend Quotes[]
- Spencer Reid: "The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret." — Salvador Dali
- David Rossi: "Illusion is needed to disguise the emptiness within." — Arthur Erickson
Trivia[]
- Courtney Cunningham, the actress who played victim Frida Bancroft, previously appeared in the season, portraying minor character Cora Bradshaw.
- The plot shares some similarities with the 1920 German silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In the film, a deranged "doctor" has his somnambulist proxy Cesare commit a series of murders during a festival in a small town.
- The plot also takes extremely uncanny key similarities to the hallmark Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. A boy raised as an orphan gets recruited by an underground gang of thieves while trying to find his parentage. It escalates badly enough numerous criminals exploit him and leave him to take all the blame, until justice catches up to them all. Oliver Twist is vindicated and finds the answers he's looking for. This is reflected in the brother looking for his sister, who was killed by the main unsub responsible for leading a cult of vagrants.
References[]