Criminal Minds

Gideon and Reid are at a contemporary art exhibit in Los Angeles. They are greeted by an old high school classmate of Reid's, Parker Dunley, who owns the gallery. Parker tells Reid he looks exactly as he did when they graduated high school. When Reid mentions Gideon is a fan of the art, Parker tells them all the works are for sale and, that as a friend of Reid's, Gideon could get a special discount.



Parker sees someone he knows, and tells Reid to go over and meet her. Parker introduces him to Lila Archer, an aspiring actress who had just landed a supporting role in a TV series. Reid introduces himself, stuttering over saying Dr. Spencer Reid, and tells her she doesn't have to call him Doctor. She laughs a little and says she won't. As they are talking, a tabloid photographer is snapping pictures of them from different angles and Parker chases him out the gallery.



Lila asks Reid what he's doing in L.A. He explains how he and Gideon are profilers, and they were there to do a training seminar for the LAPD. She asks what profiling is, and Reid explains it's psychoanalyzing a criminal's mind to help determine the identify of the unsub is in an investigation. Lila then asks him, with a little smile on her face, "Are you psychoanalyzing me right now?" Reid stutters, "No." She laughs and tells him she only kidding.



As Parker is getting rid of the photographer, the artist approaches Gideon and asks him to explore the gallery with her. They talk about one of her earliest works, and then she makes an advance. She tells him, "If I weren't a lesbian, I would jump your bones. I have a thing for middle-aged men who remind me of my father. He was a psychiatrist." To Gideon's relief, she is called away to talk to reporters.



While Gideon and the girl were talking by her artworks, Reid and Lila are looking at another work. Lila asks him if he feels anything, and he asks what. He does not quite understand how one feels anything from a painting. At this point, Gideon comes and grabs Reid so they can leave. He was obviously disconcerted with her blatant remarks about her feelings, and wanted to get out of there as fast as possible.



A young woman named Natalie Ryan is talking on the phone to someone who is inviting her out. She tells the caller she is waiting for a script to be delivered for her to study for her next job. The doorbell rings and she hangs up the phone to get it. She flips up the screen on a laptop computer and it shows a person wearing a motorcycle helmet holding a manila envelope. Natalie opens the door to take the parcel, and the deliverer holds a gun to her head. She is forced back into the living room, where she is shot execution-sty1e in the forehead. When her boyfriend comes in and finds her dead, the murderer steps around the corner and shoots him as well.



The next day after finishing the training seminar, L.A. Detective Kim is getting ready to take Reid and Gideon to the airport to catch their flight back to Virginia. As they load up the car, Kim gets a call about two murders at an actress' home and he asks them to check it out. At the scene, they find out about security getting someone in a bike helmet at the door, the actress, Natalie Ryan, was killed execution-sty1e and the boyfriend twice in the chest. Detective Kim tells them how there had been two other murders of people in show business, another not as well-known actress and a producer. Then Reid notices there are people taking pictures through the window from the yard next door. Kim asks them if they could stick around until they know with what they are dealing. Gideon tells him to cancel their flight and they would call in the rest of the team.



On the BAU jet, Hotch, Elle, JJ and Morgan discuss the case. They talk about how the unsub killed the victims in very public places and in crowds. The victims were killed doing things they did on a regular basis, such as going to the spa and running on the beach. They talk about how this person can blend in wherever they are. After the rest of the team arrives, they gather at the police station to discuss the type of stalker and the profile of this person. Michael Ryer walks in to talk to Detective Kim. In response to his wanting to talk to him in private, Kim tells him that everyone there was on the investigation. Michael tells them how he had a client who had received a threat or warning that was written on a magazine page. Morgan takes Reid with him to talk to the girl.



When they walk in, Reid recognizes Lila, and greets her. They question her about her feelings of being followed, and she responds that once on set she has hair and makeup people, reporters and a number of other people following her all day. Then they ask about receiving anonymous gifts, and Michael explains how she gets them all the time from fans. Lila tells how she gets red anemones, her favorite flower, on the seventh of every month on the steps of her trailer. Next, they ask her about Natalie Ryan and the producer who was killed. She said she had tried out for a part in the producer's movie a couple months back, but he decided to hire another actor, Natalie Ryan. They realize the other actress who was murdered looked a little bit like Lila, so they determine the stalker is killing people to help Lila's career. Lila is disturbed by this news and she leaves the room. Reid goes after and she demands to know what's going on. He explains the team's theory of why the unsub was killing celebrities.



The team goes to the studio the next day to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Michael tries to convince Lila to stay with someone because he is worried. As he leaves her to work, the production assistant, Maggie, comes over with Lila's script and hands her a note that was taped to her trailer door. Lila opens the envelope to find another note. It asks her why she went to the police, and warns her not to again. She shows the note to Detective Kim and the team. They try to get her to go to a safe house, but she refuses saying that she isn't going to shut down production and she only had one more scene to film for the day. She also tells them she had decided the night before that she wasn't going to be afraid of this person. Gideon speaks to Michael, and Morgan and Reid go on the set to keep an eye on Lila.



Reid is drinking a soda as he goes to talk to Lila on the set as she makes herself a cup of coffee. He apologizes for sounding insensitive the night before. She asks him if he was just doing his job, he tells her he was, and she replies he didn't need to apologize. She takes a sip of the coffee and makes a face. Then seeing Reid's soda, she takes the bottle from his hand and, as she takes a sip asks, "You don't mind sharing with me do you?" Reid tells her he doesn't as she hands it back and takes off her robe to reveal a bikini underneath. As she walks away, Morgan comes over to tease Reid about the situation and Reid's reaction to how Lila looked. Reid makes him laugh by telling him to shut up.



Hotch, Gideon and Elle go to Michael's office to find him dead. Like Natalie Ryan, he had been shot execution-sty1e. Gideon calls Reid to tell him to take Lila home. He tells Reid about the manager and not to tell her so that she will cooperate. The three of them begin searching the office. Elle finds a manila envelope full of photographs taken by a paparazzo named Joseph Martinez. Apparently Michael had been paying Martinez not to publish the pictures because they were very personal. Morgan and Kim go to check out Martinez's place.



When Reid and Lila arrive at her house, Reid tries to go over security measures with her. She isn't paying attention to what he's saying, and tells him she doesn't need them. She just goes about her daily routine as though there is nothing wrong. It is understandable she doesn't want to let this stalker affect her life, but this person already has and she needs to accept that. Reid is momentarily distracted by a photographic collage she has on the wall of the living room. Lila tells him that she likes it because it reminds her of life.



Morgan and Detective Kim go to the paparazzo Martinez's house, which is also his studio. They find a call list from Lila's series on the wall and some photographs, along with some close-ups of Reid that were taken at the gallery. Worrying that Reid could be the next victim, Morgan calls Reid to warn him. As Morgan hangs up, someone on a motorcycle goes roaring past, shooting at them. A bullet clips Kim in the shoulder and he has to go to the hospital. Gideon, Elle and JJ meet Morgan at the scene as Kim is being loaded into the ambulance. JJ tells Gideon there were no articles or anything where Lila stated that red anemones were her favorite flower, which Gideon had suspected was the case. They go over to Lila's to make sure they are all right.



Back at Lila's house, she decides to go for a swim in her pool while Reid looks at the collage. She asks him if he feels anything, and he tells her that he finds it very appealing. When she says she is going for a swim, he tells her not to. Lila tries to convince him to get a suit and join her. He pleads with her to get out, and she finally says she will. She asks him to help her out of the pool, and then pulls him in when he is off balance. He is upset about until he gets his gun out of the water and places it on the side of the pool. Then he realizes the situation is humorous. She swims over to him and starts to kiss him, as Reid tries to avoid her advances. He is trying to maintain professionalism because he is supposed to be protecting her, not dating her.



Finally, Reid tells Lila about Michael being killed in his office. She becomes very upset because Michael was like family to her, and it felt to her as though Rid had betrayed her by not telling her in the first place. As they get out of the pool, Morgan finds Martinez in the bushes at the fence around the pool. Martinez had been taking pictures since Lila came out of the house for her swim. They ask him if he had been stalking Lila and he tells them all paparazzi are celebrity stalkers. They had to in order to get the picture to get the money for selling them. Morgan arrests him for trespassing after Elle exposes all the film in his camera.



Back inside the house, Lila tells Reid how the last time she fully trusted someone was at Julliard. She explained how hard it was to know whether or not someone wanted something from her, and that she thought he was different. Gideon walks in to hear this comment, and tells her that he had told Reid not to tell her. After he leaves again, Reid looks at her collage on the wall and asks if he can take it apart because he could see images of her in it. They take it apart and can see it follows her life from college to the present with photographs. She says she got it from Parker Dunley, who then explains the production assistant Maggie gave it to him. She asked him to give it to Lila for her, but she didn't want Lila to know it was from her.



As Reid gets off the phone, Lila's phone rings and she says it's Maggie. He tells her they believe Maggie is the unsub and tells her to keep her talking so they can get a trace. She answers as Reid calls Garcia. At Reid's request, she traces Maggie's number to inside the house. She tells him she will send back up and they disconnect.



While Reid traces the number, Lila speaks to a very sad Maggie. Maggie tells Lila how she just misses her (even though they had just seen each other that day) and says nothing will ever be the same. Lila tells her she doesn't understand, and Maggie reminds her of Julliard when Lila's apartment had no heat and they spent one weekend in Maggie's dorm room. She says it was the best time of her life, although it apparently was not as important to Lila. Garcia tells Reid that Maggie is calling from inside Lila's house. As Reid turns back to Lila after his conversation with Garcia, they hear Maggie slam down the phone in another room. Reid asks she got in, and Lila explains Maggie had keys because they had not even known she was in the house. Reid draws his gun to look for since he knows that she will be armed. As they go from one room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the pool to another, Maggie steps from around a corner and puts her gun to Lila's head. She tries to get Lila to go with her as Reid tells her not shoot Lila. Maggie tells him she would never hurt Lila because she loves her, to which Reid responds Lila doesn't love her back because she loves him. He tells Lila to tell Maggie how they kissed in the pool. Hearing it from Lila causes Maggie to snap, and she pushes Lila away and waves the gun toward Reid. Reid is then able to disarm her. She tells him to shoot her, and he tells her that they can get her help.



Reid and Lila say goodbye the next day. Lila thanks him, and says if he's ever in L.A. again to come see her if he can. Then she asks if it would be all right for her to see him if she were ever in Washington, and he tells her that would be great. Reid puts his hand on her shoulder and she presses her cheek to it as he leaves.



Back in Quantico, Morgan and Reid are working late and they talk about what happened in Los Angeles. As Morgan leaves, he sees Reid is looking at a tabloid with a photograph of himself with his hand on Lila's shoulder. Morgan teases him by saying that he was lucky they didn't get the wet rat shot of him trying to dry his gun by the pool. Reid tells Morgan how he and Lila kissed and that he was trying to explain that it was just because of his being there to protect her. Morgan tells him it was because Reid was her hero, but Reid doesn't believe him. Reid apparently doesn't consider himself to be a hero, but Morgan tells him that a hero can do what Reid did by taking down an armed subject without firing a shot. Reid asks him about crossing the professional boundaries with a victim and the feelings he had for Lila. Morgan tells him some things just happen and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Also, as far as Reid's keeping in touch with Lila, that was something he had to decide himself and he didn't have to decide that night. Reid throws the paper into the trash can, but changes his mind and puts it in the bottom drawer of his desk.