Disturbed (Numbers)

Last updated
"Disturbed"
Numbers episode
Episode no.Season 5
Episode 21
Directed byDennis Smith
Written by Cheryl Heuton, Nicolas Falacci
Featured music"Heaven" by I Monster
"Numbered Days" by Eels
Production code521
Original air dateMay 1, 2009 (2009-05-01)
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
 Previous
"The Fifth Man"
Next 
"Greatest Hits"

"Disturbed" is the 21st episode of the fifth season of the American television show Numbers . In the episode written by series creators/executive producers Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, skeptical Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents track an undetected serial killer while their math consultant copes with his brother's recent injury. After FBI Special Agent Don Eppes's (Rob Morrow) injury, FBI Special Agent David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard), who was the newest member of the team at the beginning of the series, served as team leader. Falacci and Heuton also included Easter eggs from the "Pilot" and from some of the previous 99 episodes.

Contents

The producers brought back one previous guest star and almost had a special guest star. For the 100th episode, series producers brought back Josh Gad, who amazed producers in a previous episode. Dr. Stephen Hawking, who visited the set during filming, almost became a guest star in the episode.

"Disturbed" first aired in the United States on May 1, 2009. Critics generally liked the episode.

Plot summary

A woman is killed in her house in broad daylight. FBI math consultant Dr. Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz), who has found a temporal pattern in a series of unrelated murders, tells skeptical FBI Special Agents David Sinclair (Alimi Ballard) and Colby Granger (Dylan Bruno) that the murders, including the woman's murder, must be the work of an undetected serial killer with a kill count of almost 70 victims. Charlie's obsession with the serial killer worries David, Colby, and FBI Special Agents Liz Warner (Aya Sumika) and Nikki Betancourt (Sophina Brown), as they suspect that Charlie may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Five days before, Charlie's brother, FBI Special Agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow), suffered a life-threatening stab wound while investigating a home invasion, and Charlie blamed himself for Don's injury. [1] At Charlie's house, Don, who is there recuperating from his injury, confronts Charlie about his behavior.

The next morning, a postal worker is found murdered near the scene of the previous murder. Since the recent murder does not match the timeline of the other murders, Charlie asks David, the team leader during Don's recovery, for more data. David directs Charlie to Roy McGill (Josh Gad), an amateur police consultant who consulted with the FBI on a previous case involving conspiracy theorists. [2] McGill and Gene Evans (John Rubinstein), a retired accountant/amateur police consultant, identify several unsolved cases in Fresno and Bakersfield, California, which fit Charlie's timeline. FBI technician Matt Li (Matthew Yang King) gives Charlie a copy of Dr. Kim Rossmo's methodology. Using the information from Evans and Li, Charlie realizes that the killer has previously moved twice before arriving in Los Angeles. A couple of days later, Charlie and McGill visit Evans for more data and find Evans and his wife dead. While investigating Evans' murder, the FBI team learns that Evans had a restraining order against Mark Horn (Daniel Sauli), who had been stalking Evans. Upon arrest, Horn asserts that he only wanted Evans to help him appeal an Internal Revenue Service decision that was based on a mistake that Evans made on Horn's tax returns.

Meanwhile, McGill finds another victim, Nancy Kershaw from Stockton, California, whose murder shared commonalities with some of the other victims' murders. He and Dr. Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol), Charlie's friend and fellow FBI consultant, think that Charlie should consider her murder as the serial killer's first murder. Charlie hesitates, since her murder does not fit into the timeline. After finding no errors in Charlie's logic, Dr. Amita Ramanujan (Navi Rawat), Charlie's girlfriend and a fellow FBI math consultant, informs Don that Charlie is right about the serial killer's existence. At the FBI office, Don and the team figure out that the serial killer is eliminating those who either witnessed and investigated the unsolved murders. Earlier in the investigation, the FBI team learned of the murder of Bakersfield Police Department Detective Driscoll, who investigated the unsolved Bakersfield cases that Evans identified. The witnesses' and investigators' murders showed up as anomalies in Charlie's timeline. At the house, Charlie, Don, and their father, Alan Eppes (Judd Hirsch) reminisce about the brothers' first case. Inspired by his memories of the first case, Charlie applies the mathematical model of hot zones, the locations of the crimes to determine the most likely area where the suspect lives, to the current case. This time, Charlie uses the model to identify several potential targets. As the team surveys the identified targets, the killer strikes one house but escapes when the agents attempt to arrest him.

To narrow the focus of the investigation, Charlie and David compare the social security numbers of the residents in the hot zones with census records. McGill provides the FBI with a crucial clue—years ago, the killer had spoken to Nancy Kershaw's then-boyfriend. The agents find that one man, Robert Posdner (Brian Howe), faked his identity four times during the same time period as the murders. They ask him to come in for questioning. Meanwhile, Kershaw's former boyfriend identifies a modified version of Posdner's voice as the one he heard years ago. The team arrests Posdner at home, and Posdner brags about how he eluded detection for so long. After the case is closed, the brothers are at the house with Alan, Amita, and Larry. Charlie decides to unpack his new office, which he has not started since Don's injury. Don informs Alan that he will be returning to full duty Monday. As the sprinklers go off, the brothers share a laugh before going inside.

Production

Writing

For "Disturbed", series creators/executive producers Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci decided to revisit the pilot. [3] In the previous episode "The Fifth Man", Don's stabbing forced David to become the team leader. For "Disturbed", David was still the team leader, a change from his first day on Don's team during the pilot. [4]

Heuton and Falacci included Easter eggs for fans of the series. For example, the physics chair was the Walter T. Merrick chair, named after Walter Merrick (Anthony Heald), [3] the FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office and Don's boss in the second pilot. [5] Rossmo and Rooker were two other Easter eggs. [6] Dr. Kim Rossmo developed the criminal geographic targeting model that was featured in the "Pilot". [7] Michael Rooker was cast in the original pilot as an FBI agent [8] but left the series when the pilot was refilmed. [9] Heuton and Falacci also included references to other episodes in the series. [10] When asked about the 100th episode in separate TV Guide interviews, actors Alimi Ballard [11] and Rob Morrow [12] alluded to the Easter eggs.

Casting notes

For the 100th episode, the writers and producers brought back Josh Gad. They were impressed by his performance in "Conspiracy Theory". [3]

During the filming of "Disturbed", Dr. Stephen Hawking, a fan of the show, surprised the cast and crew with a visit to the set while visiting Los Angeles. He was offered a role on the episode, but, due to issues involving obtaining a work permit on short notice, was unable to appear in the episode. [10]

Celebration of 100th episode

Temporarily stopping production, the cast and crew celebrated the 100th episode on March 25, 2009. On April 21, 2009, the cast and crew celebrated both the episode and the end of the season at the Sunset Tower Hotel. To celebrate, the press was in attendance. [3]

Reception

Over 9.70 million people watched "Disturbed". [13] Critically, the episode was very well received. Calling the episode "a knotty murder mystery", Tim Holland of TVGuide.com included "Disturbed" in TVGuide.com's Hot List for May 1, 2009. [14] Jeffrey Robinson of DVD Talk stated that McGill's presence in "Disturbed" made the episode interesting. [15]

Related Research Articles

<i>Numbers</i> (TV series) American crime drama television series (2005–2010)

Numbers is an American crime drama television series that was broadcast on CBS from January 23, 2005, to March 12, 2010, for six seasons and 118 episodes. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his brother Charlie Eppes, a college mathematics professor and prodigy, who helps Don solve crimes for the FBI. Brothers Ridley and Tony Scott produced Numbers; its production companies are the Scott brothers' Scott Free Productions and CBS Television Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amita Ramanujan</span> Fictional character

Amita Ramanujan, Ph.D., is a fictional character from the CBS crime drama Numb3rs, played by Navi Rawat. Over the course of the series, she has become a professor at CalSci and has since become romantically involved with her former thesis advisor, Dr. Charlie Eppes. She was first introduced in "Pilot". She also works as an FBI consultant with Charlie and Larry.

"Pilot" is the first episode of the American television show Numbers. Based on a real-life serial rape case, "Pilot" features two brothers, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and a mathematics professor at a Southern California university, using their individual skills to capture a serial rapist who has begun to kill his victims. "Pilot" also introduces the theme of mathematics being used to solve crimes.

"Guns and Roses" is the 20th episode of the second season of the American television series Numbers. Written by Robert Port and filmed around the Los Angeles Center Studios, the episode features a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent investigating the apparent suicide of a former girlfriend while beginning a new relationship. Port based his story on real-life instances. He also was inspired to include acoustic testing and genomic research in the script.

"Uncertainty Principle" is the second episode of the first season of the American television series Numbers. Based on a real bank robbery case, the episode features a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) math consultant's prediction being incomplete after FBI agents find themselves in an unexpected shootout with suspected bank robbers. Series writers Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci wanted to explore the emotional effects of the case on Dr. Charlie Eppes. For the mathematics used in the case, they included several mathematical and physics concepts, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, P versus NP problem, and Minesweeper game.

"Provenance" is the third episode of the third season of the American television show Numbers. Inspired by real-life instances, the episode features a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into a stolen painting which may have a tainted provenance. Gena Rowlands, who works as an advocate for Holocaust survivors, portrayed a Holocaust survivor who claimed that the painting was originally her family's painting. Within the series, the episode also depicts the Eppes family as Jewish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Warner</span> Fictional character

Liz Warner is a fictional character in the CBS crime drama Numb3rs, played by Aya Sumika. A former girlfriend of FBI Special Agent Don Eppes, she has since become a part of Don's team.

"Scorched" is the 11th episode of the second season of the American television series Numbers. Marking the first produced script for series writer Sean Crouch, the episode features Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and mathematicians investigating a series of arsons that may have been started by an ecoterrorist group. Bill Nye "The Science Guy", who is a fan of the show, guest stars as a colleague of scientists Dr. Charlie Eppes and Dr. Larry Fleinhardt.

"Spree" is the first episode of the third season of the American television show Numbers The episode features Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents pursuing a couple of spree killers. Series writer Ken Sanzel drew inspiration for the episode from pursuit curves. "Spree" also launches a more general trend toward the serialization of the series.

"The Art of Reckoning" is the 21st episode of the third season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents investigate the confessions of a mob hit man before his execution. Written by Julie Hébert, the episode also highlighted the return of series regular Peter MacNicol as his character, Dr. Larry Fleinhardt, returned from space.

"The Janus List" is the 24th episode and the season finale of the third season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team investigate a former triple agent's claims of someone poisoning him.

"Trust Metric" is the season premiere of the fourth season of the American television show Numbers. Written by series writer Ken Sanzel, "Trust Metric" is set five weeks after the events in "The Janus List". In "Trust Metric"'s story, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team attempts to find a pair of double agents, one of them a former teammate, who have escaped from prison. The story continues the events that began in "The Janus List".

"When Worlds Collide" is the 18th episode and the season finale of the fourth season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, two brothers, one a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent and the other a mathematician, disagree with each other on the issue of academic freedom after one of the mathematician's friends is arrested on terrorism charges. Series creators Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, who wrote the episode, first mentioned the idea for the brothers' conflict during a season two commentary. When Heuton and Falacci wrote the episode for season four, their episode launched a story arc that was later resolved during season five.

"The Fifth Man" is the 20th episode of the fifth season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and mathematicians attempt to find a group of home invaders while dealing with the injury of the agents' boss. For FBI Special Agent David Sinclair, the case is his first as team leader. The art department built a new office for Dr. Charlie Eppes, which reflected his own professional growth within academia. Brought in several times before to audition for various guest appearances, Debbon Ayer, Rob Morrow's real-life wife, guest-starred as the victim of a home invasion.

"Angels and Devils" is the 23rd episode and the fifth season finale of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents search for a mathematician who has been kidnapped by a cult leader. The episode ended with a character's priorities changed and a marriage proposal left unanswered. James Callis guest-starred as the cult leader, Mason Dureya.

"Democracy" is the 18th episode of the third season of the American television show Numbers. Written by Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci, the episode highlights a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into the murder of one of their math consultant's friends while an agent learns that she has been selected for a United States Department of Justice (DOJ) assignment. Heuton and Falacci also brought back fan favorite Oswald Kittner, portrayed by Jay Baruchel.

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"Thirty-Six Hours" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of the American television show Numbers. In the episode, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and mathematicians attempt to determine the cause of a fatal train accident while several agents attempt to rescue survivors. When it was originally scheduled to air as the fourth episode of the season, "Thirty-Six Hours" occurred in the middle of a story arc launched by the season four season finale. When the real-life Chatsworth train derailment occurred two weeks after filming the episode, the accident forced a revision of the script to include episodic events that occurred after the end of the story arc.

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References

  1. "The Fifth Man". Numb3rs. Season 5. Episode 20. April 24, 2009.
  2. "Conspiracy Theory". Numb3rs. Season 5. Episode 9. December 5, 2008.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Alimi Ballard (actor), Judd Hirsch (actor), Dylan Bruno (actor), David Krumholtz (actor), Nicolas Falacci (co-creator/executive producer), Cheryl Heuton (co-creator/executive producer), Rob Morrow (actor), Robert Port (co-executive producer), David Stapf (president of CBS TV Studios), David W. Zucker (executive producer), Tony Scott (executive producer), Nina Tassler (president of CBS Entertainment), Ken Sanzel (executive producer/writer), Josh Gad (actor), Aya Sumika (actor), Sophina Brown (actor) (2009). Celebrating 100 (DVD (Numb3rs: Season 5)). CBS Studios, Inc.
  4. Cheryl Heuton (co-creator/executive producer), Nicolas Falacci (co-creator/executive producer), David Krumholtz (actor), Lewis Abel (co-executive producer), David W. Zucker (executive producer), Mark Saks (casting director), Sophina Brown (actor), Navi Rawat (actor), Rob Morrow (actor), Aya Sumika (actor), Alimi Ballard (actor), Dylan Bruno (actor), Judd Hirsch (actor), Lou Diamond Phillips (actor), Henry Winkler (actor), Robert Port (co-executive producer), and Katherine LeBlond (assistant set decorator/buyer) (2009). Crunching Numb3rs: Season Five (DVD (Numb3rs: Season 5)). CBS Studios, Inc.
  5. Bianculli, David (January 20, 2005). "Crime Drama by 'Numb3rs'". Daily News. New York Daily News. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2009.
  6. Ausiello, Michael (March 19, 2009). "Ask Ausiello: Spoilers on 'Grey's,' 'Smallville,' 'True Blood,' 'Ugly Betty,' 'Prison Break,' 'Numb3rs,' 'Heroes,' 'NCIS,' 'Housewives,' Bones,' and more!". EW.com. Archived from the original on May 1, 2010. Retrieved September 16, 2009.
  7. Aaronson, Lauren (April 24, 2005). "Calculus of Crime Surprise! TV Gets the Math Right". Popular Science . Retrieved July 15, 2009.
  8. The Futon Critic Staff (TFC) (March 8, 2004). "Development Update: March 8". The Futon Critic. Retrieved July 13, 2009.
  9. Sullivan, Brian Ford (July 21, 2004). "CBS Makes 'Recovery,' 'Numbers' Midseason Priorities". The Futon Critic. Retrieved July 13, 2009.
  10. 1 2 Kinon, Cristina (May 1, 2009). "Hawking counts 'Numb3rs' as a fave". New York Daily News . Retrieved September 9, 2009.
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  12. Mitovich, Matt (April 24, 2009). "Shocking Preview: Is Don's Numbers Up? Plus: a Peek at the Secret-Filled 100th Episode". Today's News: Our Take. TVGuide.com. Retrieved September 12, 2009.
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  15. Robinson, Jeffrey (October 21, 2009). "Numb3rs: The Fifth Season". DVD Talk. Retrieved January 6, 2010.