The episode opens with a boy in Bakersfield, California who is out exploring, when he finds the torso of a body in an abandoned shed.
SSA Kate Callaghan takes down a child pornographer in an undercover sting, and then in the next scene comes into the BAU headquarters to be iinterviewed by Hotch. Based upon her success rate as an undercover agent, in addition to praise from her superivisor, he decides to hire her.
The team, including Callahan, go to Bakersfield to investigate a series of murders, where all that is discovered are the bodies' torsos. The fact that no other limbs or heads are found make it next to impossible to determine the identify of the victims.
In fact, the Unsub has removed all identification material, including all breast implants.
The BAU determines that the Unsub has been dismembering his victims' limbs before killing them, making his crimes ones of torture as well as murder.
The team searches for people who have been taking deliveries of preservatives at home. Rossi and Callahan find one home and, when they ask to come in to search, the owner denies them entry, which raises their suspicion.
When the man leaves his home, they catch him and find body parts in his car. Upon taking him in for questioning they learn he hasn't murdered anyone; he has only purchased these parts from someone he met in an online chat room.
Meanwhile, the actual unsub has a victim, who he has tied down. He chops off one of her arms. In order to prevent him from hurting her further, she befriends him.
The BAU hunt down a professor who they think might be the Unsub, only to learn that he was actually the Unsub's first victim. Believing that the professor had blocked the Unsub's love interest, they investigate the girl he was seeing. They learn that the woman had put out a restraining order against the Unsub – who is Steven Parkett, who lives at a slaughterhouse.
The latest victim convinces the Unsub to untie her and take her for a walk. As she does so, she grabs a knife, slashes him and escapes from him, just as the BAU team rolls up and rescues her.
The team spreads out to hunt him down. He slashes Callahan, and Hotch shoots him.
Callahan is okay – she just needed ten stitches to close her wound.
Afterward, Callahan expresses some concerns about the proximity of the latest victim to the Unsub: she lived in San Diego, and he lived in Bakersfield.
In one of the last scenes, a jogger is asked for directions from a woman in a van. While providing them, the jogger is abducted.
In the final scene, we learn there are many men out on the internet, looking at pictures of women, many of whom have the word SOLD emblazoned across their pictures.