Criminal Minds (TV Series)

False Flag (2017)

Zelda Williams: Melissa Miller

Photos 

Quotes 

• Melissa Miller : We're veering dangerously close to "bull crap" territory.

  Emily Prentiss : We could call it murder. If the profile was Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, we could arrest the piece of coral, I guess. Or we could just accept that life is...

  Melissa Miller : Messy, random. Yeah.

  Emily Prentiss : Until it's not.

  Melissa Miller : What does that mean?

  Emily Prentiss : Well, that seemingly unimportant book, there was one additional detail Bob Orci told us about that I forgot to mention. No, I... I didn't forget. I was holding back for dramatic effect.

• Emily Prentiss : The unknown subject we're looking for is a male, most likely in his twenties, based on the two victims so far. But before we go any further, we need to be clear. Age is the most difficult variable to predict. He could be in his forties.

  David Rossi : A very fit forties.

  Emily Prentiss : So, our point is the profile is a guide only. It's an investigative tool, and we need to stress that. All we have is a series of deductions, but one of those deductions is that the unsub knew his victims personally, which is why we're delivering the profile to you, because you also knew the victims. So, our goal is not to make you uncomfortable or suspicious. Normally we wouldn't even give the profile this early, but you are our best chance at discovering the identity of...

  [Gary raises his hand] 

  Emily Prentiss : Yes?

  Gary Hiles : I have a question for Agent Rossi.

  David Rossi : Go ahead.

  Gary Hiles : Why did your last book suck so bad?

  David Rossi : [laughter]  Uh... well, we're not gonna talk about that now.

  Gary Hiles : Really? That's all I want to talk about. I mean, you even consider that Tommy Yates was a patsy?

  Jennifer Jareau : Look, we get it, okay? You have no reason to trust us. We're the FBI, and you are the official community of the Roswell, New Mexico truthers.

  Melissa Miller : Thanks for not calling us conspiracy theorists.

• Melissa Miller : Okay, stop right there.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : What?

  Melissa Miller : You guys have a jet?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yes.

  Melissa Miller : A jet.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yes.

  Melissa Miller : Black helicopters surveilling the American people; no, no that's ridiculous. But a little branch of the FBI has its own private jet.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Okay, one, I never said the FBI doesn't have black helicopters. And two, when people are being murdered, we have to respond quickly.

  Melissa Miller : [with a scoff]  A jet. I can't even.

• Melissa Miller : What's going on? Who are you?

  Emily Prentiss : I'm SSA Emily Prentiss of the BAU. Melissa, you're gonna want to take a seat.

  Melissa Miller : Oh, god. Someone died, didn't they?

  Emily Prentiss : What makes you say that?

  Melissa Miller : You guys have had me waiting in here for hours while your team tracked down Bob Orci. What happened?

  Emily Prentiss : Are you recording this? You should.

  [Melissa turns her recorder on] 

  Emily Prentiss : Agents Simmons and Alvez landed at Bob Orci's at 3:37 a.m. They were very surprised by what they found.

  [the scene flashes back to the previous scene] 

  Luke Alvez : FBI!

  Matt Simmons : Oh, my god.

  Emily Prentiss : Hey, guys, meet Bob Orci. Weapons down, please.

• Melissa Miller : Wait. So you got there before them. How?

  Emily Prentiss : By helicopter. Not the Bureau's helicopter. This one belongs to the police force.

  Melissa Miller : What?

  Emily Prentiss : There's been a push. Police forces across the country have been purchasing military-grade hardware.

  Melissa Miller : Yeah. Like grenade launchers and tanks.

  Emily Prentiss : Roswell doesn't need a tank. It needs a helicopter. People get lost in the desert. Sometimes an FBI agent like me needs to get to a cabin in the middle of nowhere as fast as possible. Based on your warning the sheriff and I landed a mile away and we came up with a plan.

• Melissa Miller : Organic tomatoes.

  Emily Prentiss : Yeah.

  Melissa Miller : "ANFO" stands for ammonium nitrate fuel oil. *Fuel* oil. You can't grow anything with it.

  Emily Prentiss : We pointed that out to Bob. He said that must be why his tomatoes kept dying. We searched the whole compound anyway. There was no bomb. But Bob Orci had quite the story to tell.

• Melissa Miller : So it was Carl's copy. Doug didn't bring it with him? Why would Doug put page 76 over Carl's throat?

  Emily Prentiss : He didn't. Only Carl's fingerprints and DNA were on that page. Doug never touched it.

  Melissa Miller : You've lost me.

  Emily Prentiss : Ever been shot before? People do weird things when they're shot. Carl was slipping into shock, meaning he had some vague awareness that he was gonna die and his brain was short-circuiting.

  Melissa Miller : So that clue that seemed so important four hours ago, it means nothing.

  Emily Prentiss : Life is messy. Random. That's why I sent Agent Jareau back to the first crime scene. We needed to take a look at it again without any preconceptions. And when she saw the cleaning supplies, she had an idea. Specifically, what happens when you're not careful how you clean your aquarium. So she had Garcia do some research.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : No, that's not the only thing. The podcast. She... she had us right where she wanted. She could have posted the audio of our conversation to prove we were trying to cover this up, but instead she deleted it. Which she only would have done if she had revealed herself somehow.

  Jennifer Jareau : She didn't say anything incriminating when I talked to her.

  Emily Prentiss : Me, neither.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Then it was me. She let something slip, something she doesn't want me to remember. So... what?

  [flashback] 

  Melissa Miller : Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook. The United States government shot up a bunch of empty buildings and then gathered everything up and traded it amongst themselves, because that's how plausible deniability works.

  [return to real time] 

  Dr. Tara Lewis : She traded it.

  David Rossi : Traded what?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : The bullet and the shell casing. She took the evidence and she gave it to someone else.

  David Rossi : And you know this because...

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Think about a conspiracy theory like a pathology. What... what disgusts her, what she fears most in other people, that's the action she'll copy to justify her own belief system.

  Emily Prentiss : So who has the bullet?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Who else?

• Melissa Miller : Can I go home now?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : No. We're holding you and your friends for twenty-four hours. You're all persons of interest in a murder investigation.

  Melissa Miller : Murder? What, Doug killed himself.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : True. But there are still two other victims to account for. Now, normally, when there's a public suicide, it's because the suspect is the serial killer and he's killed himself out of guilt. But we can't prove that yet, so our investigation is still open.

  Melissa Miller : He said this whole thing was a false flag, which means he thought you were trying to frame him.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I know what a false flag is. The FBI doesn't frame people.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : You know, all of your friends have lawyered up, called us Nazis, or both. But you haven't.

  Melissa Miller : So?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : So that tells me you want to get to the bottom of this just as much as we do.

  Melissa Miller : Do you know what a podcast is?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I do.

  Melissa Miller : Well, I have one. So if we're actually gonna do this, you give me back my phone and I record our conversation for my podcast, 'cause I'm not talking to you without documenting everything.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : You want this on the record?

  Melissa Miller : Of course. I want this on the record. Otherwise I'm lawyering up with all my friends. So what do you say?

• Melissa Miller : Say something. We need to make sure the levels are good.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I'm Dr. Tara Lewis of the BAU...

  Melissa Miller : No, no. Say something interesting. Tell me how you really feel about truthers. My audience could use a sense of the FBI's bias against us.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I got my PhD by taking a theory, testing it, and then proving my results. Now, proving my results means that I take those results and I turn them over to other scientists to see if they can replicate them, and if they can't, then my theory was wrong. See, that's science. A consensus of evidence that we call truth. What you do is different.

  Melissa Miller : No, it's not.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yes, it is, because your theories are unprovable. Give me one.

  Melissa Miller : Uh... President Obama wasn't born here. He was born in Kenya.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Perfect. That's perfect. So, I show you his long-form birth certificate, and then you would respond that it's been faked because that's how deep the conspiracy goes. And then that becomes your argument against any evidence that I provide. It's a cognitive trick that keeps you from having to admit that life is messy. It's random. Not everything fits the easy explanation that a conspiracy gives you.

• Melissa Miller : Back up. What was that term you used? Equivocal something?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : An equivocal death investigation. It's an investigation where we consider all options. It could be a murder, but it could also be a suicide or an accident, or even natural causes.

  Melissa Miller : Are you saying these murders weren't murder? Is that the FBI's official position?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I'm saying we let clues guide us to a deduction. We don't jump to conclusions. But as we were flying here, our technical analyst uncovered something unusual.

  Melissa Miller : Right. Your technical analyst. That would be Penelope Garcia?

  [Tara is surprised] 

  Melissa Miller : Yeah. I looked up your whole team before coming in here.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Why did you do that?

  Melissa Miller : Because I'm a naturally suspicious person who wanted to get a feel for your methods. Specifically the illegal surveillance that the FBI is willing to resort to to frame innocent men and women.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : As I said, the FBI doesn't frame anyone. And we certainly don't do anything illegal.

  Melissa Miller : Well, I guess that depends on what Garcia found and how she found it. So what did she find?

• Dr. Tara Lewis : Ballistics confirmed that the gun that killed Carl is the one that Doug used on himself. All the evidence points to Doug Downey as our killer, except...

  Melissa Miller : Except you don't have anything tying Doug to Bryan's drowning.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Melissa, I've been as transparent as I can possibly be. Is there anything we've missed?

  Melissa Miller : One thing. But you didn't miss it, you covered it up. Specifically, that the sheriff made us all walk through a metal detector.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : What?

  Melissa Miller : [sardonic laugh]  Don't pretend you didn't know that. And don't pretend you don't know why. Someone in law enforcement planted a gun on Doug. Because what was that he was saying earlier tonight?

  Doug Downey : [flashback]  What did you put in my pocket?

  Matt Simmons : Gun! Drop it!

  Dr. Tara Lewis : [return to real time]  Melissa, that doesn't make any sense.

  Melissa Miller : You tell me what's more believable: a missing gun in a wacky compartment, or the police planted a Bodyguard 380, a very popular firearm in law enforcement, on Doug. Then they call their friends all the way in Quantico and you guys get on your fancy jet and come out here to make sure that the cover-up's complete.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : That's not what happened.

• Melissa Miller : Am I your unsub? Yes or no.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : You are a person of interest, just like every other truther in this building tonight.

  Melissa Miller : That's a yes. Which is why I'm recording all of this; to show the world exactly how far the FBI is willing to go to cover up the truth.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Okay. Let's... let's take a moment. I think we've gotten off track.

  Melissa Miller : No, no. No, we're, uh, we're right where we need to be. See, I wanted the brilliant science of behavioral profiling to provide an answer for all this. I really did. But right now, from where I'm sitting, this crazy conspiracy theorist is the only one making any sense.

• Melissa Miller : Bull crap. Bull. Crap. You know, I would use stronger language, but I don't want this podcast to get an "explicit" rating.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Well, it's the truth. Metal detectors require precise calibration. Otherwise, they're susceptible to all kinds of interference. Photocopiers, Bluetooth, even fluorescent lighting. The sheriff was in such a hurry to get it set up down at the legion hall that he assumed it would work the same way it always had, but it didn't.

  Melissa Miller : I still don't buy it.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Do you know why?

  Melissa Miller : Why what?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Why you don't buy it. I can tell you. It's called proportionality bias. You see, it's our natural human instinct to assume that big events have big causes. We don't want to believe that a lone gunman killed JFK with a rifle he bought for $19.99, or that hijackers brought down four planes using only box cutters. I mean, there has to be a better explanation. We need an answer that's more satisfying, but sometimes it just isn't. You know? Machines break down. Systems don't work. Life is messy. It's random.

  Melissa Miller : Fine. Let's just test your version, shall we?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Let's.

  Melissa Miller : You're saying that Doug snuck a gun through a metal detector, a metal detector he would have no way of knowing was broken, is that your story?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Well, why don't you tell me a better one.

  Melissa Miller : Not my job. What my audience wants to hear, however, is how well your team does yours.

• Melissa Miller : Wow.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Does that mean something to you?

  Melissa Miller : [scoffs]  Of course that means something to me. "Catcher in the Rye"'s been linked to multiple killers since it was first published. And when Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon, he said "Read 'Catcher in the Rye'. That's my statement." It was found on John Hinckley's bookshelf after he shot Reagan. Oswald, Manson, Robert Bardo, they were all obsessed with it. It was the original brainwashing tool of the United States government.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I wouldn't call it that.

  Melissa Miller : Of course you wouldn't. Because then you'd have to admit how sophisticated the whole-scale duping of this nation has become.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : I'm not following you.

  Melissa Miller : Aurora, Orlando, Sandy Hook. The United States government shot up a bunch of empty buildings and then gathered everything up and traded it amongst themselves because that's how plausible deniability works.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Sandy Hook was staged?

  Melissa Miller : Sandy Hook was staged the worst. All those actors they threw in front of cameras to be grieving parents. I was screaming at my television set "You're lying!". And if the would lie about that, then they would absolutely lie about a metal detector. So let me make one thing clear moving forward. When I say "they", I mean you.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Give me one second.

  [standing to leave, she walks across the bullpen into an empty office and shuts the door] 

  Dr. Tara Lewis : SON OF A...!

  Sheriff Mike Bowman : [watching with Prentiss]  What the hell kind of outfit you running here, Agent?

• Melissa Miller : Where's Dr. Lewis?

  Jennifer Jareau : I'm SSA Jareau. I'm here to talk to you about your favorite book, "Catcher in the Rye".

  Melissa Miller : I get it. You're rotating agents now, wearing me down so I can't see your lies. Is that the game?

  Jennifer Jareau : Well, I just had some information Agent Lewis didn't, but if you don't want to hear it...

  Melissa Miller : [stopping her as she turns to leave]  Oh, no. I want to hear.

  Jennifer Jareau : [sitting down]  So after we found such a prominent clue on Carl, we wanted to study the original text, so we got a copy of the book. Apparently, "Catcher in the Rye" is the local book club selection this month. And did you know that there are two actual...

  Luke Alvez : [the scene dissolves into a flashback at the metal detector]  ... brick and mortar bookstores in Roswell? But one of the owners was happy to give me a copy. What page is it?

  Jennifer Jareau : Uh, 76. That's what was on Carl.

  Luke Alvez : Okay, here it is. It, uh, it starts mid-sentence. "Don't see how he could like a phony book like that and still like the one by Ring Lardner."

  Jennifer Jareau : No, that's not right.

  Luke Alvez : What... what do you mean that's not right? I have it right here.

  Jennifer Jareau : That's not what I saw.

  Emily Prentiss : Did that just...?

  Jennifer Jareau : Yeah, see, this... this page 76 is different. The page on Carl's throat was annotated. The publisher bolded terms and phrases for emphasis.

  Luke Alvez : Well, that would throw the whole layout of the book off. I mean, your page 76 wouldn't look like this one.

  Jennifer Jareau : Okay, so there are two editions of the book. That's common. But maybe it's not the page that's important. Maybe it's the edition.

• Penelope Garcia : The devil's in the pitchforky little details, my friends. I-I matched the formatting of the text on poor doomed Carl to a local publisher. He goes by the name of Bob Orci. He writes conspiracy-related commentary for books like "Behold a Pale Horse", "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", "Mein Kampf".

  Jennifer Jareau : Books the truthers love.

  Emily Prentiss : Right now, we need as much evidence as possible to prove that Doug is our unsub. If he bought the book we found on Carl, it strengthens our case. Luke, you and Matt bring in this publisher.

  Luke Alvez : I'm on it. Garcia, can you help me out with an address?

  Penelope Garcia : Yeah, I'm... I'm working on the physical address of Mr. Orci as we speak. The thing is he lives so far out there that it's not a place where there are street numbers on the houses, so the closest thing to a physical address I can get you is...

  Melissa Miller : [the scene dissolves to the interrogation room]  Route 3, Greenwood Way?

  Jennifer Jareau : You know him?

  Melissa Miller : By reputation. He's not a truther. He's an anarchist. He's dangerous.

  Jennifer Jareau : How dangerous?

  Melissa Miller : He has fertilizer lining his place as an explosive.

  Jennifer Jareau : [jumping out of her chair and opening the door]  Prentiss!

  Melissa Miller : Wait. That far out in the desert, there's no cell service. You're not gonna reach them by phone.

• Melissa Miller : We were dating. That's not a crime.

  Emily Prentiss : So why hide it?

  Melissa Miller : The truther community is small, and we're gossipy. Also, we're already convinced agents like you are watching us. So Carl and I covered our tracks. So well, in fact, that the great and powerful Garcia is not going to find them.

  Emily Prentiss : I believe you. Which is why we had to rely on old-fashioned profiling to figure out this next part. And it started with a question you asked first. Why would Doug kill himself for no reason? So, we reconstructed Doug's suicide to see what we missed.

  [dissolve to the legion hall] 

  Dr. Tara Lewis : So you were there and I was here.

  Emily Prentiss : Right.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : And then he was screaming at you, "I know a false flag when I see one, bitch", and then bang.

  Emily Prentiss : No, that's not right. He said all those things, but not to me. He was looking at you.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : No. No, if someone made eye contact with me and called me a bitch, I'd remember.

  Matt Simmons : Maybe he wasn't looking at either of you. He was looking between you.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Uh... JJ, you were posted up over there for line of sight.

  Jennifer Jareau : Yeah.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Okay, there's only one other woman in the room he would have been talking to.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : I admit my bias, out loud, because I wasn't able to see what was right in front of me the whole time. I thought anyone who believed in conspiracy theories had to be deluded. There was no way they could outsmart me. And I was wrong. There is a conspiracy in this case. And you are at the center of it. So, allow me to be clear from this point forward. I'm gonna give you one chance to tell the truth. One. Keep in mind we are already searching your place. If you lie, if you hold back in any way, I will know about it, and I will nail you for it. All the way to a life sentence.

  Melissa Miller : Wow. What's the point of this? I guess there's just one last thing to say before I invoke my right to an attorney. Good luck.