Criminal Minds
Season 4, Episode 13, "Bloodline"
The episode focuses on the case of a murder, carried out by a family of Romanian descent, who maintains a tradition of kidnapping young girls for their son and killing their parents. It is later revealed in the episode that they are in fact Rromani, yet they use Romanian words. The Romani “group” operating in Alabama is discovered after killing Nancy Hale and her second husband, Geoff Hale, and abducting their ten-year-old daughter Cate. Noticing that she suffers an epileptic seizure, the father decides to dispose the "sick" child so he abandons her by a secluded highway. She is saved and taken to the hospital, where she reveals important details about the family who abducted her, including a Romanian word they use as a term of endearment – “puiule”. Meanwhile, the murderous family starts looking for another victim. After abducting Lynn Robillard and killing her parents, they plan to escape so they burn all their possessions. However, Kathy Gray, one of the perpetrators, who was in her childhood a victim of the same murderous tradition, is caught, arrested and interrogated by the police. She is forced to reveal the location of her husband and son and eventually does so. In the present episode, Romania is represented not just as a land of superstition but also one dominated by violence and murderous urges. It is implied that although the family is made of Rromani (or gypsies) thus nomads, they have Romanian origins. The Romanians are thus painted as being a highly superstitious people, obsessed with rituals. From here, one can infer that they are seen as backward, maintaining an old mentality governed by violence and superstition. One example of this is an Eastern European superstitious ritual that they perform, namely spreading colorful broken glass for good luck or protection. It is suggested that the murderous tradition the Rroma family are a part of is a cross-generational one, being passed down from father to son for centuries within the Rroma community. The justification offered for this is that they need to “keep the bloodline pure”. A key aspect of the representation of the murderous family with Romanian origins is the one regarding stealing. It is a well-known fact that Rroma people (and by extension Romanians) are seen as thieves, so it’s no wonder that the producers of the show decided to incorporate this stereotype in this narrative as well.
