FBI – Season 5 Episode 4 “Victim” Recap & Review

Victim

Episode 4 of FBI Season 5 starts with OA being robbed as he walks on the street. A woman lures him on the pretence of being in danger and he tries to help her. A man appears and points his gun toward OA before proceeding to rob and assault him. Before he can grasp what has just happened, he gets a call from Nina informing him of a new case and he leaves the robbery scene before the police arrive.

The new case they are investigating is the murder of a young female Hispanic woman and they suspect she was killed during a robbery. They ran the victim through facial recognition and get a hit, her name is Marta and she was strangled to death after being raped.

OA and Nina visit her mother to inform her of the passing of her daughter. Her mother tells them that Marta may have had a stalker.

Isobel is informed by  Inspector Chavez who is running point on OA’s robbery about the mugging and she checks on OA.OA claims he is doing fine and wishes to keep the incident private. Isobel tells him that if he wishes the FBI can take over the case as there have been at least ten other robberies with the same M.O but OA says he will let Isobel decide on that. Isobel chooses to let Inspector Chavez handle the case.

Street footage gives them a clue about the man who was stalking Marta. His name is Norm and he has two priors and there is an arrest warrant out for him. OA and Nina head over to his workplace to arrest him. During the arrest, OA gets a tad bit aggressive with the suspect and Nina tries to calm him down.

They interrogate Norm who denies meeting or knowing Marta. Jubal interrupts the interrogation and informs Nina and OA about a new victim. She was killed in the same M.O and Norm is unlikely to be the suspect. He orders Nina and OA to go to the new crime scene. At the scene, Nina makes light conversation with an officer and his bad joke seems to have pissed OA who gets in his face. Nina and Tiffany try to get OA to calm down.

Isobel asks the team to check police reports on sexual assault cases that have similar M.O. She hopes they will find clues that might tell them more about the suspect. He obviously is skilled as he has not left any forensic evidence behind so this is probably not the first time he has done this.

Chavez visits OA to go over his police report about the robbery and check if he remembers anything else. OA finds the line of questioning from Chavez overbearing and is reluctant to give more information on the suspects as he insists he didn’t see them clearly. Chavez wants to get the culprit off the street as they are escalating but OA is unwilling to share more information and tells Chavez he can “save this self-help victim crap for someone else!” before angrily walking away.

As they dig through past sexual assault cases, they get a hit, and OA and Nina visit the victim, Citra to interview her. Citra  is reluctant to share the details and Nina tries to push her to tell them more. OA is sympathetic to the victim and ends the interview not wanting to push her further and Nina is frustrated they didn’t get any information on the suspect.

Tiffany and Schola follow up on a lead obtained from the cuffs the suspect used to restrain his victims. They head to the surplus store where the cuffs were sold and they get another lead. They go to interview the person who made the sale but they find her murdered in her apartment. She has been dead for 12 days.

Chavez visits OA again and informs him that the suspects that attacked him, shot a man who is currently fighting for his life in the hospital. He begs OA to take a look at a photo array and see if anything jogs his memory. OA obliges and identifies the people who attacked him for Chavez. He is also inspired to use the same technique on Citra to help solve their case.

This time Citra opens up to OA who came alone and she confesses that  she has a shirt with the suspect’s blood on it. OA is happy that they finally have useful evidence that might lead them to the perp.  They get a hit on the DNA from the shirt and the suspect is the clerk from the surplus store they visited earlier. They go back to the store but he is not there and he was last seen with a girl.

OA finds him trying to rape a girl near the store but the suspect flees so OA pursues him. The suspects initiate a fight and OA goes overboard forcing Nina to once again calm him down.

Later, OA visits the victim who was attacked by the same robbers that he was. Chavez tells him that he understands but it is obvious that OA feels a sense of guilt for not speaking up earlier.

The Episode Review

OA has not been in a good place for a long time and the robbery was hard on him. He needs to understand that it is not his fault the attackers nearly killed another man. He was also processing his trauma from the robbery and he is allowed to be human too.

Throughout this episode, OA reacted emotionally which is unusual for him, the robbery must have affected him more deeply than he cares to admit.

At the end of the day, OA got a first-hand experience of what victims of a traumatic crime go through. The lessons he learned from his experience will make him an even greater agent. What do you think?