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| “ | Every great movie star has a walk... Something you'll never have. | „ |
| ~ Walden mocking a victim after cutting off her toes |
Rhett Walden is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Reflection of Desire". He is a mentally ill man who mutilates and murders women to recreate scenes from the film Reflection of Desire, which starred his late mother.
He was portrayed by Robert Knepper, who also portrayed Theodore Bagwell in Prison Break, King Chichak in Turok: Son of Stone, Keith in Hoodwinked!, William Tockman in Arrow, General James Harkness in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Jonas Johnson in Transporter 3, Trenton Lamont in Chicago Fire, and Jonah Aldrich in Hard Target 2.
Overview[]
Walden was raised by his mother, May, a failed actress who was impregnated by her costar in her one and only film, Reflection of Desire, before he walked out on her. May blamed Rhett for her career disappointments and subjected to years of emotional and verbal abuse. He had complicated, love-hate feelings for his mother that bordered on incest. After her death - which is implied to have been at his hands - he began hallucinating that she was still alive, and kept her corpse preserved in his house, having regular conversations with her in his mind.
"Reflection of Desire"[]
Walden is first seen showing a clip of Reflection of Desire to Kelly Landis, a woman he managed to abduct. He then tries to get her to act the scene along with him, all the while hallucinating about May. The following night, he kills Kelly, takes out his razor blade, and cuts off Kelly's lips. Kelly's body is later found by a vagrant in an alleyway and the BAU is called in.
They find out that another vagrant lives in the alleyway and he tells that no other vagrants were present in the alleyway when Kelly's body was found. The BAU realized that the killer was posing as a vagrant. Meanwhile, the day following Kelly's murder, Walden and May sit at a train station, looking for potential victims. May excuses herself, and Rhett spots a little girl and tells her that she has the confidence and grace of an actress. He kindly has her enact a walking-down of a red carpet before he spots Penny Hadley. He cruelly tells the girl she is ugly, with nothing to give to the world and leaves, later abducting Penny.
Taking her to his residence, he attempts to get her into his mother's shoes, but Penny's large toes prevent the shoes from being worn. Playing along, she says she can do the scene barefoot. When she is untied, she hits him and effectively breaks his nose. She tries to escape, but the door is locked. Walden grabs the sedative used to knock her out and approaches her. He grabs her by the throat and roughly kisses her, but she bites back and continues to resist. Walden knocks her out and greets her when she awakes, telling her that she was right about her big toes. Penny looks at her feet and screams when she realizes that they are now fitting perfectly in the shoes, with her abductor having cut them off with his razor blade. When Walden leaves, Penny attempts to escape once more, but finds a room full of Reflection of Desire posters and screams, stumbling across May's corpse. Walden appears behind her and takes her to a secluded alleyway in his car. He then attempts to kill her, but he is spotted by Behavioral Analysis Unit agents Aaron Hotchner and David Rossi. Hotchner shoots at Walden to incapacitate him; he manages to hit Walden, but Walden keeps running, merely yelping out when he is shot. Hotchner is then able to rescue Penny.
IT specialist Penelope Garcia manages to track down Walden's address with his car's license plate as well as the handicap permit, which is registered to May, and the authorities surround his house. Inside, Walden straightens out his suit and, still hallucinating, asks May if she is ready. Walden calmly walks out with his mother's corpse in his arms and surrenders to the police, laughing hysterically as he hallucinates walking down a red carpet with his mother. It is implied that he is institutionalized.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Walden is inspired by multiple real-life and fictional criminals:
- The killer of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. “The Black Dahlia”, a young, beautiful actress who was found naked and mutilated to death off the side of a road, including with severe facial disfigurement bad enough she was identified by fingerprints. Walden particularly is highly similar to prime suspect Dr. George Hodel.
- Norman Bates, the villain of the novel and film Psycho. Like Bates, Walden is a mentally ill serial killer whose mind was warped by an abusive mother, and who keeps his mother's corpse in her house to maintain the illusion that she is still alive.
- Dean Timothy Foley, the villain of the film Pieces, a university dean who killed and dismembered his mother as a child, then killed students at his college to steal their body parts and piece them together while dressed in his mother’s clothes.
External links[]
- Rhett Walden on the Criminal Minds Wiki
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