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Recap

The episode opens with the aftermath of the shootout.  Bodies of the dead and injured are everywhere, and shots are still being fired.  Reid is slipping in and out of conscious while Blake is frantically telling him to hold on, calling him "Ethan".

Morgan recovers consciousness and begins shooting at the preacher.  He and JJ go chasing him into an abandoned building. 

Morgan gets shot again but manages to finally shoot and kill him.

Reid undergoes surgery while Morgan is admitted with a gunshot wound.  The team gather around Morgan's hospital bed and quickly realize that the Preacher was set up, and that the bodies found in the diner had been dead for some time.  Morgan figures out that the Preacher wasn't the first one to shoot.  The fire fight was a setup.

It doesn't take them long to realize that  Deputy Owen McGregor, the second in command, is the unsub who has masterminded the setup. They eventually discover that a large number of deputies are also corrupt or at least supporting him .  The one man not in on the corruption is Sheriff Coleman - who the BAU realizes was one of the first to be killed in the shootout, likely by McGregor.

The BAU can't trust anyone in the police department.

After learning that Reid has made it through the surgery and will be okay, McGregor decides to go to the hospital and finish him off.  Garcia receives a picture text from Morgan which identifies McGregor. While still on the phone with Morgan, she tells him that McGregor is there. Morgan instructs her on how to rescue Reid.  Garcia gets to Reid's hospital room and after shutting the door, puts Reid into a wheelchair.  She also grabs his gun.  Then she pushes Reid into the hallway and sets off the fire alarm, thereby thrwarting McGregor's murder attempt.

Meanwhile, JJ is trying to get Dinah - McGregor's second in command over the prostitutes - to provide evidence.  But she can't because she's afraid of the threat against her son's life by McGregor.  She gets Morgan and Blake to rescue the boy and his grandmother.

While Rossi and Blake are on the way to the grandmother's house, some of the corrupt deputies realize that the BAU knows of their plans, so they attempt to pull Rossi over so they can kill them both.  Rossi manages to ram their vehicle and get away. 

When McGregor arrives on the scene and the corrupt deputies tell him what happened, he shoots them both dead.

JJ let's a grateful Dinah know about her son's rescue, and she agrees to give evidence.  JJ and Dinah attempt to leave the police station, and when a deputy tries to stop her by grabbing her arm, Hotch and Cruz step in, threatening to charge them with obstructing a federal investigation. He lets go of JJ and they escape.

One of the corrupt deputies tries once more to murder Reid by showing up at his hospital room dressed as a male nurse.  He tries to put some meds in Reid's I.V. but Garcia tells him he's already has his meds.  Reid reads the med bottle and realizes that it's a medication to which he is severely allergic.  Reid manages to rip the I.V. out of his arm just in time, and when the man turns around to grab the cord, Garcia and Reid both see a gun tucked into the back of his pants.  Just as the man grabs the gun to turn and shoot Reid, Garcia grabs Reid's gun and shoots him.

The BAU figures that the attempt on Reid's life was designed to be a distraction, and that McGregor was on his way to a local junkyard.  They meet him there and a shootout starts up.  Hotch gets into a fist fight with McGregor, but then shoots him dead.

Earlier in the show, Rossi shared with Blake the story of the end of his marriage to Carolyn, his first wife.  He told her about how the job became more important than his marriage.

At the end of the episode, Blake escorts Reid home.  She tells him about her son Ethan, who had died of a neurological disease. Seeing Reid get shot shook her up.  She makes a decision to leave the BAU.

Show:
Criminal Minds
Season:
Episode Number:
24
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Criminal Minds Season 9 Episode 24 Quotes

Reid: Have you ever had that feeling that you're future's somehow behind you?
Blake: All the time.
Reid: I did too. But it isn't.
Blake: Ethan would have been a lot like you.
Reid: Thank you for being there when I woke up. It meant a lot.
Blake: Of course.
Reid: Bye, Alex.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us - Joseph Campbell

Reid