Season 11 of the American police procedural drama TV series “Criminal Minds” on CBS aired its penultimate episode on April 20 and the cliffhanger at the end only means that viewers need to brace for a whirlwind season finale on May 4.
Episode 21 of “Criminal Minds” featured a convicted female serial killer named Antonia Slade, played by Frances Fisher, who may have information regarding the whereabouts of two missing boys.
It was actually an episode that resembled the movie “Silence of the Lamb” where Antonia is synonymous to Hannibal Lecter while the BAU team members are synonymous with the detective role played by Academy Award-winning actress Jodi Foster in the film.
Getting into the agents’ heads
Instead of getting direct information from the notorious serial killer, Antonia seems to have gotten into the heads of practically each of the BAU team members beginning with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron ‘Hotch’ Hotchner, played by Thomas Gibson.
The episode, entitled “Devil’s Backbone” actually showed Antonia appearing to be orchestrating everything even if she is already behind bars.
She also has her own rules in talking to the BAU team members because she wants it one at a time. She obviously played mind games on them and even attempted to drove wedges on their working relationship.
Antonia wants to throw the agents off balance and she obviously wants to satisfy her need to be in control and feeling important, notes Buddy TV.
She was even quoted as saying that of all the serial killer types, the ones she finds the most dangerous are the hyper-intelligent ones that get off more on the mind games than the killing. She explained that they are like vampires who are ready to suck their soul dry and file their information away for a rainy day.
The episode also kept viewers on the edge of their seats when it ended on a ‘To be continued’ note as Antonia tells Hotch that there is a storm coming and he is about to be swept away and that it is his reward for being so clever.
A dangerous cat-and-mouse game
It was a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse that the BAU agents played with Antonia after the guards at a Virginia prison intercepted a package with evidence related to the disappearance of two boys several years ago, details Celeb Dirty Laundry.
Slade received a package of bloody clothes from behind bars and a DNA test showed that those clothes once belonged to two missing teens from Virginia.
The DNA and the police reports also listed that those clothes are the last things that either of the boys had been wearing before they disappeared.
Antonia had killed over a dozen teenagers that had come to her for help and she had never revealed why she did it or ever speak up towards her own defense.
It turns out later that the only thing she wanted was a transfer so the BAU team was forced to give in to her request just to get more information from her. It was actually Dr. Spencer Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler, who eventually deciphered that Antonia was sending coded message to her ultimate fan in the person of Claude Barkow.
Barkow had been one of Antonia’s patients where she used to do private counseling sessions in Kentucky. She closed her practice in Kentucky and moved to Virginia where she soon began killing kids.
The BAU team later found out that Claude had followed her in Virginia and he had forced her to get a restraining order against him which is the reason why he has gone south.