ANSWERS: Helter Skelter 5

Before I reveal the answers to "Helter Skelter 5", I should point out that the usual list of solvers is gonna look a little different from here on out. Before now, I've colored the names of people that are currently supporting me on Patreon in red, but starting with this Answers post, those Patreon supporters will be colored orange instead. The main reason for this is that the Blogger page which I use to schedule and type out my upcoming posts had a "mobile-friendly" redesign not too long ago which altered the default colors that I could use to change the text's hue. The normal shade of red that I use wasn't included in that set, so instead of trying to add a "custom color" (which keeps getting removed for some reason) or constantly editing the HTML code every time, I've decided to change that red hue to a shade of orange already included in the defaults, since orange is one of the colors used in Patreon's logo. So now with that long-winded explanation out of the way, here's the eleven people that have solved my puzzle from two weeks ago:

• Grant Fikes ****
• Cindy Heisler ****
• Joe Bernard ****
• Giovanni Pagano ****
• Kevin Orfield ****
• Patrick Jordan ****
• Sam Levitin ****
• Stephen Potter ****
• Mom ****
• Lynn Sweeney ****
• Debbie Benford ****

Now head below the break for the answers and a solver's comment!

And here are the answers in text format, in case you can't make out the above letters:

1) Ratigan, 2) AAA, 3) ARMA, 4) Marilyn, 5) Iris, 6) Icecap, 7) Poultry, 8) Racecar, 9) Celtic, 10) Carmen, 11) Millions, 12) Ounce, 13) Elk, 14) Karma, 15) Ancestry, 16) Tile, 17) Logo, 18) Guitar, 19) Alter, 20) Rosary, 21) Sorry!, 22) Rains, 23) Sock

The gray letters unscramble to spell out CRITICAL

Patron Giovanni Pagano noted that it had "Been a while since I've solved one of these. But it chained together nicely from 10 on, and I was able to use the other letters to finally recall RATIGAN and get the other part of the chain filled in."