This week on Criminal Minds, I just have to say that out of all the lunatics that the show’s writers have pranced out for us, this particular guy really was just nuts – in a deep, insane kind of way.

The Criminal Minds team is called to duty soon after the funeral of Hotchner’s ex-wife.  Hotchner has decide to step down from his FBI job as he re-evaluates his life and what is going to be best for his son. He is then offered handsome retirement packages if he decides he wants to never come back, and the powers that be want him to make a decision immediately.

While Hotchner is going back and forth on what his future will be, the team flies off to help catch a serial killer who is preying on wealthy women. Every Friday this guy goes out and literally makes himself a date. He actually believes he’s in a relationship with these women and pretends that they are on a date.

He romantically lays rose petals across the floor all the way to the bedroom, cooks them dinner and forces them to have a glass of wine with him… just like they’re on a real date.

It turns out that he is a guy from humble means that was dumped by a woman who had money, but because he was trying to live in her upscale world it made him go broke.  Once he was broke she left him and the guy just flips out and starts stalking women who look similar to his ex-girlfriend, creating their relationships out of thin air. If they refused to play along with his little fantasy, he stabs them to death with a knife.

Since all these women were on the high end of money the Criminal Minds team assumed the killer had money too, but when realized that probably wasn’t the case the new perspective helped them to find this heartbroken killer fairly quickly, before he was able to kill his next victim. This was a little different type of Criminal Minds’ episode, although it still kept to the same pattern. The writers did a particular good job at making this guy look very clever and yet still show him as a prime candidate for a straight jacket.