Criminal Minds 7x12: Unknown Subject

Original Air Date: 25 January 2012

Storyline: The BAU team searches for a serial rapist in Houston known as "The Piano Man", who has resurfaced and is assaulting his previous victims. Also, Prentiss tries to come to terms with her trauma from last year and with rejoining the team.Trivia: The character names Regina Lampert and Hamilton Bartholomew were also characters in the film Charade (1963), starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.

This episode marks the 150th episode of the series. 

Best Quote:

Reid: Fourteen is when we start to make our own musical choices. Our cognitive development evolves at that age and we start to form our own cultural identity. 
Morgan: We stop listening to the music that our parents played and we start listening to the music that our friends listen to. 
Reid: Our musical experiences imprint on us. Our hormonal surges as teenagers may make the choices seem more personal and passionate, and later on in life we might experiment with other musical selections. But no music ever impacts us as much as that we listen to at age 14.

Intro: "We do not suffer from the shock of our trauma, but we make out of it just what suits our purposes." Alfred Adler. (Hotch)Outro: "All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." Henry Ellis. (Prentiss)Review: First, let me start by giving my congratulations to this show, that has reached its 150th episode. Let's hope we will get many many more and that the current cast will not be messed with ever again. Even though JJ annoys me a little bit this season; it's like they changed the character to make the fans not like her so that they can get rid of AJ Cook for good.

Secondly, I was more than excited to see Dina Meyer guest star as Regina Lampert, the serial rapist's first victim and the one who, eventually, led the FBI to the Piano Man by taking some extreme actions. I just love the actress ever since I've seen her in that stupid Starship Troopers movie, so her presence here was just one more reason for me to be jittery.
The plot - or plots, if you may - were yet another element that got me all excited. As you can imagine, one has high expectations from their favorite procedural show when it hits 150 and this one didn't let me down one bit, not even the focus on Prentiss and her issues with faking her death and all. It was bound to be revisited at some point and I actually love the more personal focus of this season.
But I won't dwell on that and jump right into the case, which was again very unique. Not only was it about a serial rapist - when this show usually handled murders and such, but the originality came from two directions. The first one is the UnSub's modus operandi, in which he was drugging the victims with cigarettes, using piano wires to tie them and was raping them while playing some piano ballad for the entire time (song that was different with each victim - and I will never be able to listen to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with the same pleasure ever again); the second, the UnSub having a copycat that was raping the Piano Man's victims, and actually setting this copycat up to take the fall for him. Also an original element - the BAU revisiting an old case where they didn't catch the UnSub (definitely something new for them). 
So the investigation was a lot of fun to watch and offered so many twists that you didn't really know what to believe. I swear, at one point, when Hamilton Bartholomew talked about Regina's scars, I actually thought she was the one drugging and raping (or something) those women. 
Favorite moments: Reid's lesson about how the music we listen to when we're 14 sticks with us forever (so that's why I still love glam metal!); Garcia putting herself in Hotch's shoes by imagining herself in a really good suit; Prentiss' new boyfriend, Sergio - "the perfect man. He doesn't hog the covers, and he poops in a box."; and Hotch's ability to see through Emily's lies, even those that the FBI psychologist didn't detect.Criminal Minds 7x11: True Genius Back to Season 7