‘Criminal Minds’ season 11, episode 9 review: Hotch investigates an inside job
On the last episode of “Criminal Minds” we saw Tara Lewis return to the team and even meet JJ. They had a great connection and we are hoping that the fans liked having them both on the team as much as we do, so that perhaps we could have Tara join the group permanently. Also, Garcia is on lock down until the four hitmen hunting her are caught. Will we see any movement towards that tonight?
A man named Axel Rod requests Hotch’s presence at a country club. With one DEA agent dead and two missing he asks Hotch and his team to investigate, but Hotch realizes there’s something more to this. Axel tells him that there’s an inside man named Bernard Graft that he thinks is involved, but he needs proof and feels that Hotch can get it for him.
Garcia is still living at work, eating off a hot plate, but in good spirits because she believes that the case of the week will lead Hotch closer to finding her hitmen. The whole team is on the case and Tara is working with the group with week – as we’ve said many times, we hope that she will become a regular to the team, but with Spencer still visiting his mom, we suspect that she is just helping out until he returns.
When Hotch goes into the task force and meets Graft, he is immediately suspicious of Hotch’s true intentions and Hotch knows it. As they dangle information back and forth to try to get the other person to slip up, but instead Graft ends up getting shot on his way to meet Hotch with information. When reinforcements show up they call Graft’s death a suicide (even though it isn’t) and the flash drive Axel wanted is missing. Hotch start asking questions, and learns that his assistant has the flash drive, given to her for safe keeping when Graft realized that the NSA learned that he was looking for the real mole.
Hotch goes back to Axel with the information he has, saying that all signs point to Axel as the mole and wants him to come clean, but instead Axel says that it was his boss that tipped him off to Graft. Hotch has a chance to talk to Axel’s boss naming him as the person that was pushing the DEA agents into the serial killers arms and he is arrested.
Although Hotch was able to get some of the loose ends tied up, Garcia still can’t go home, because things aren’t over. We feel so bad for her going through all of this, but it was such a nice moment to see Hotch stay late with her and have supper at the office in her make shift apartment. It was one of those rare moments where we see Hotch smiling – completely contagious! Episode grade: B-
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