S01E18 - I Choose to Stay

"I Choose to Stay" is the eighteenth episode of Season 1 of We Can Fix Pawbert and the second part of a two-part Criminal Minds crossover.

Synopsis

Pawbert engages in a phone conversation with Dr. Silris Mawl, who attempts to manipulate him into believing suicide is the only path to redemption. Using the counter-scripts the BAU developed, Pawbert turns Mawl's attack around and declares the series' thesis statement: "I choose to stay." Morgan and Nick breach Mawl's apartment and arrest him.

Plot

The episode begins exactly where the previous one ended—the phone in Pawbert's paw, the safehouse holding its breath, and Mawl's voice coming through the line like a warm poison. The room has become a command center: Tara sits across from Pawbert with counter-script cards ready, Rossi monitors from the corner, and Garcia's trace runs in real time through Pawbert's earpiece. They need two minutes minimum, three is better.

Mawl begins his manipulation methodically, pressing on the exact wounds he knows will hurt most. He tells Pawbert that every kindness from the people around him costs them something, that every smile is work. He claims that Pawbert is poisoning the mammals who care about him, that even their forgiveness cannot fix what is inside him. Pawbert's paw trembles on the phone. Tara holds up a card: NAME IT. When Mawl offers a door—one brave choice to end the weight—Pawbert deploys the first counter-script: "Their love is not my poison." The silence on the line is brief. Mawl adjusts, probing for another angle, and Pawbert deploys another counter-script: "That's your story. Not mine."

Mawl escalates. He invokes Milton's words directly—the deepest psychological wound available. "Your father knew it. He saw what you were. Weak. Insufficient. A liability." The words hit the exact bruise that Milton created and that never fully healed. For a terrible moment, the room thinks Pawbert is lost. His eyes fill with tears. His grip on the phone whitens. Then something shifts. Pawbert opens his eyes and acknowledges that Mawl is right—his father did call him the weak link, did call him worthless, did say he would never be enough. Then Pawbert delivers the turning point: "He was wrong."

Pawbert speaks from the place Mawl tried to drown. He admits that he has thought about the door Mawl is describing, the way out that looks like peace. But he kept waking up, because they were still there—Nick making bad jokes, Judy setting boundaries, Luther being steady. Mawl's script is not working, and Pawbert calls it out directly: the phrases are calculated, not truth. When Garcia's triumphant voice bursts through the earpiece—"GOT HIM. Location locked."—Pawbert delivers the line that defines the entire series: "I choose to stay. That's my answer. To all of it."

Morgan and Nick lead the breach team to Mawl's apartment in the Meadowlands district—a quiet neighborhood chosen precisely because no one would think to look for a monster there. The apartment is warm, with soft lighting and psychology books on shelves, everything calibrated to seem helpful. Mawl sits at his desk with Pawbert's photo among his files. He looks up at the breach with mild inconvenience rather than fear. When Morgan reads the charges—conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering, psychological coercion resulting in death—Mawl claims he never told anyone to do anything. Judy cuffs him with controlled force, noting they have the recorded call as evidence. Nick leans in with cold satisfaction: "He breaks toward us now. Not away." Mawl's smile falters. As they lead him out, he murmurs almost to himself: "I was helping them." Judy's response is flat: "You were killing them."

The BAU returns to Site Two to say goodbye. The safehouse has returned to something like normal, the command center dissolved, the tension bleeding out slowly. Pawbert sits wrapped in a blanket with tea cooling in his paws, bone-deep exhaustion visible in his eyes. Prentiss tells him he did something hard and should not forget it. Tara reminds him to keep practicing the counter-scripts: "Recovery isn't a moment. It's a muscle." Garcia's voice crackles through speakerphone, adding Pawbert to her exclusive list of people who did not let the darkness win.

Rossi stays behind after the others file out. He settles into a chair and offers wisdom earned from a career of hunting monsters: the ones who survive are not the strongest—they are the ones who let other people carry them when they cannot walk. Pawbert admits he does not know how to do that. Rossi replies that he did it today: he picked up that phone surrounded by people who wanted him to live. When Pawbert asks what to do if Mawl's voice gets louder than theirs, Rossi tells him to borrow their certainty until his own returns. "Simple isn't the same as easy." Before leaving, Rossi adds one final observation: the guilt Pawbert carries is proof he has a conscience, which is proof he is not like them. "The people who choose to stay—they're the ones who change things."

In the ZPD lobby, Prentiss and Chief Bogo exchange the brief mutual respect of mammals who have both seen enough darkness to know what it costs. The BAU files out. Nick watches them go and complains that he hates how wise Rossi is—"like a fortune cookie with better tailoring"—and Judy almost laughs. They head back to check on Pawbert.

Later at Site Two, Nick and Judy return with confirmation that Mawl is in custody. Dr. Fuzzby remains on speakerphone. When Pawbert says he meant it—"I choose to stay"—Judy confirms they know. When he says it did not fix everything, Luther replies that it is not supposed to; it is supposed to keep him alive long enough for the rest to happen. Pawbert admits that Mawl said they would get tired of him. Judy is firm: "He was wrong." Nick shares something quieter—that he has been exactly where Pawbert is, believing he was what they said he was, waiting for everyone to confirm it. What changed was that someone did not confirm it. Someone believed he was more than the story.

In the tag, Luther finds Pawbert standing at the window, looking out at nothing. The city lights blur beyond the glass. Mawl's voice is still in Pawbert's head, and he asks how Luther knows it gets quieter. Luther replies that Pawbert already proved Mawl wrong. Pawbert admits he might have to keep choosing every day. Luther confirms: that is how it works. When Pawbert asks if it is worth it—the choosing—Luther tells him that he spent years not choosing, just surviving, going through motions. What changed was Pawbert. Protecting him, watching him fight, seeing him choose over and over even when everything in him wanted to stop—that is when Luther remembered what it felt like to want something to matter. Pawbert rests his forehead against Luther's chest. Luther's arms come around him. "Thank you for staying," Pawbert says. Luther's answer is the word that will define their relationship across five seasons: "Always."

Key Moments

• Mawl begins psychological manipulation, claiming Pawbert is poisoning everyone around him
• Pawbert deploys counter-scripts to resist Mawl's tactics
• Mawl invokes Milton Lynxley's words—Pawbert nearly breaks
• Pawbert rejects his father's characterization of him as the weak link
• Garcia locks Mawl's location through the phone trace
• Pawbert declares his choice to stay—first use of the series' anchor phrase
• Morgan and Nick breach Mawl's Meadowlands apartment; Mawl arrested without incident
• BAU prepares to depart; Rossi stays behind to offer wisdom about survival
• Nick observes that Pawbert now breaks toward them, not away
• Luther and Pawbert stand at the window in the tag; Luther promises to stay always

Key Lines

Locations

Items

End Credit Song

"I'm Here" (From 'The Color Purple'), Cynthia Erivo

"I'm Here" is an anthem of survival and self-declaration, sung by Celie at the moment she finally claims her own existence against everyone who tried to destroy her. The song's power lies in its defiance: after a lifetime of being told she was worthless, ugly, and better off dead, Celie stands up and declares "I'm beautiful, I'm here." This mirrors Pawbert's triumph over Dr. Silris Mawl, a psychological manipulator who used every wound Milton ever inflicted to try to convince Pawbert that suicide was the merciful choice. Pawbert counters each attack with the tools his pack and therapist have given him, finally declaring, "I choose to stay"—the series' thesis statement. Cynthia Erivo's soaring performance honors the magnitude of that choice.

Notes

• "I choose to stay" becomes the central recurring phrase of the entire series, referenced across all five seasons.
• This is the episode where Pawbert definitively chooses life over the self-destruction his father's legacy tried to impose.