Ep 6. The Eyes Have It

The Criminal Minds season 5 episode 6 titled "The Eyes Have It" follows the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) as they investigate a series of killings in a small Florida town. The victims are all young women, and the murders have a signature mark- the perpetrator gouges out their eyes.

As the team arrives in Florida, they met with the local sheriff, who tells them about the latest victim, a teenage girl named Shelly. The BAU examines the crime scene and tries to find a connection between the victims or the killer's motive.

The team members start canvassing the area and meet with the family of a missing woman named Lindsey. They discover that her boyfriend is the same man who found Shelly's body. The team apprehends him, but he maintains his innocence, claiming that he only stumbled upon Shelly’s body while searching for Lindsey.

The BAU continues to investigate and discovers a more sinister motive behind the killings. The killer, who they believe is a man, is obsessed with eyes and uses them as a way to relive traumatic experiences in his past. The team dives deep into the killer's psyche and discovers that he has frontal lobe damage, which has caused him to develop emotional detachment and psychopathic behavior.

The killer operates through an online platform where he meets his victims, posing as someone in their age group. He lures them into his car, where he drugs and blindfolds them before gouging their eyes out. The killer then leaves their body in a junkyard and taunts the police with his cryptic crime scenes.

As the BAU races against time to catch the killer, they realize that the killer is targeting a specific type of woman with unique features that he desires. They use this information to narrow down the list of potential victims, and they start monitoring all the social media activity within the area.

Finally, the BAU manages to find the killer and takes him into custody. The suspect confesses to the murders, admitting that he could only experience deep emotional connections through the eyes of his victims. He reveals that his mother abandoned him as a child, which caused him to develop a severe emotional disconnect. His need for a connection led him to seek out victims that matched the features of his mother's eyes.

The episode ends with the BAU returning home, reflecting on the case and the twisted motivation of the killer. They know that they have saved countless lives by taking the killer off the street, but still, they cannot escape the profound sadness that the case has left them with.