An AMBER alert is activated for a young boy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and the BAU suspect it to be the work of a pedophile who has abducted and killed two other boys.An AMBER alert is activated for a young boy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and the BAU suspect it to be the work of a pedophile who has abducted and killed two other boys.An AMBER alert is activated for a young boy in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and the BAU suspect it to be the work of a pedophile who has abducted and killed two other boys.
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Garcia is sent a list of names to research as potential suspects, one of the names on the list is "Nate Phlox". John Billingsley (Hugh Rollins) plays Dr. Phlox on Star Trek: Star Trek: Enterprise (2001).
- GoofsDuring the intro, David Rossi says; "99% of abducted children are killed in the first 24 hours." According to the DOJ funded 2006 Child Abduction Murder Study; in 76 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child was dead within three hours of the abduction-and in 88.5 percent of the cases the child was dead within 24 hours. Less than 1 in 10,000 missing children cases results in a death. 99.8% of the children who go missing do come home.
- Quotes
Emily Prentiss: Danny told me what he did to Kyle. Do you know what he did?
Dan Murphy: Yes, we know.
Emily Prentiss: Everything he did? Danny stuffed... plane parts down Kyle's throat.
Dan Murphy: What?
Capt. Lancaster: Oh, God.
Dan Murphy: He wouldn't do that.
Emily Prentiss: You told Danny to watch his temper. What else did you worry about? Danny said you had a puppy, but he died. Your son is ill, and he needs help. The truth is, the only thing Danny isn't capable of is remorse. He feels nothing. The son you were trying to protect... is a sociopath.
It is the sort of episode where the "truth being closer to home than one initially thinks" was strongly suspected early on, the killer's coldness and indifference to me was noticeable but unusually not picked up upon by the team until later on than the viewer. This said, "A Shade of Grey" did do a great job with its twists and turns and one really does believe that it could be what is strongly suspected for most of the episode.
Plus, the truth is actually very shocking here (more so actually on repeat viewing, because the killer was creepier on repeat viewing than on first viewing) and one where even when suspected earlier than hoped you just pray it isn't true. The truth of something so shocking and tragic and the nonchalant creepiness, with the calmness and lack of remorse, of the killer indeed stayed with me for a while.
The rest of the story is absorbing and tautly paced too, with a scary and poignant atmosphere throughout and on-point execution of its twists and turns. The subject was an interesting one and dealt with with a lot of impact. The script is thought-provoking and intelligently written, it and the adroit direction doing full justice to the actors.
All of which do a marvellous job, nothing to complain about with the regular lead actors (Paget Brewster sells it in the latter parts of the episode when the truth all comes out where the writing and acting are so well done) and a surprisingly masterfully subtle turn from Kendall Ryan Sanders. John Billingsley also makes the stomach roll.
Production values as always are very high in quality, being atmospheric and stylish, while the music (agree that this component is pretty underrated on 'Criminal Minds') has the right amount of the ominous touch and the pathos.
In conclusion, creepy and tragic and almost one of the season's best. 9/10 Bethany Cox
- TheLittleSongbird
- Feb 3, 2017
Details
- Runtime41 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
- 16:9 HD