Criminal Minds Season 11 Episode 6 Recap: ‘Pariahville’ Shows What Happens In A Town Of Sex Offenders

In last night’s episode of the hit CBS TV show Criminal Minds, the CBU are called in to investigate the murder of a woman murdered in a small Florida town which happens to be full of sex offenders, leaving the gang mired in a sea of suspects.

Criminal Minds ‘Pariahville’ Recap: Season 11 Episode 6

The town, Glenpoint Village, is the first of its kind, intended as a safe space for rehabilitated sex offenders where they can live out their lives free from prejudice. The case becomes personal for Aisha Tyler‘s, Dr. Tasha Lewis, because she helped found the social experiment community. Dr. Lewis had previously worked with a Reverend Santos, a man who was sent to jail when he was 17 for impregnating his 15-year-old girlfriend. When he came out of prison he felt ostracized by his former community and so came about the idea for Glenpoint.

Only non-violent offenders are accepted into the community and all are subjected to an intense vetting process. The experiment had been working near perfectly, that is until resident Paige Lincoln, a teacher who had been convicted for an inappropriate relationship with a young student, is found murdered, inexplicably wearing a cheerleader costume.

The finger is course to her Paige’s husband, Kyle, a fellow non-violent offender. The team discover Kyle had harbored cheerleader-based sexual fantasies and become increasingly suspicious when it transpires he and Paige used IRC to send each other dirty messages, an app which deletes texts after their sent.

An interview with resident Randy, who the Reverend had believed was a peeping tom but is in fact a pedophile, uncovers a connection to Matt Franks, a young man living in the community who had previously been accused of stalking a teenage girl in his hometown.

The team is on to Matt by the time the sheriff’s daughter, Reilly, goes missing and, because she has a cheerleader uniform, they surmise Matt has taken her back to her house. The team find Matt before he can hurt the girl and in the skirmish that ensues Dr. Lewis is forced to shoot him, leaving him dead.

Dr. Lewis, who had been considering leaving the BAU to pursue a research career, makes a decision to move on, ending Tyler’s run on the show.

Fans had previously thought Tyler might become a long-term cast member but showrunner, Erica Messer, revealed they had only ever intended her to stay on for the duration of A.J. Cook‘s maternity leave.