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"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[]

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[]

  1. Credited as "Olga the Contortionist"
  2. Credited as "Romeo the Magician"


Criminal Minds Episodes
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