The Popular Kids
Directed by Andy Wolk
Written by Edward Allen Bernero & Andrew Wilder
Written by Edward Allen Bernero & Andrew Wilder
Gideon: Sir Peter Ustinov said, "Unfortunately, a super abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares."
A school athlete kills a cheerleader's boyfriend to clear the path for himself. Incidentally, the girl is with him when he gets assaulted, so the UnSub has to kidnap her, and since his chances with her are shot now, he ends up killing her too. He tries to pin the whole thing on a local Satanist.
This episode provides examples of:
- Awful Truth: The sheriff is told the reality that his son is a murderer. He goes into a Heroic BSoD over it.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Seems to be Zizzo's primary motivation for his little "Lords of Destruction" group. He even says outright that the only reason he's adopted Satanism as his style is that the word Satan, as originally used, simply means "antagonist" and can define anyone who sets themselves against the prevailing authority. In other words, he doesn't actually worship the devil, he's just being as big of a rebel as he can without breaking any laws more serious than drug use and maybe underage drinking.
- Cult: The "Lords of Destruction" have shades of this... as do the group of teenagers that end being actually responsible.
- Everyone Has Standards: Zizzo may hate the religious community and adults, but he makes it clear he's just a punk and hasn't even thought of murder.Zizzo: Look, we draw stars upside-down, get drunk, and listen to metal, that's it! Alright, we don't kill people.
- Fall Guy: The LOD were made into this by the UnSub so that he could get away with the murders.Gideon: It was convenient, wasn't it? We had a kid right in the room to tell us where the LOD was... a group of fringe kids nobody in the town would like.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: The sheriff cannot believe that somebody from his town could possibly be a killer.
- Hollywood Atheist: The UnSub is a Nietzsche-quoting teenager who murders jocks in fake Satanic rituals, blaming the deeply religious town. In particular, he frames a local "Satanic" (read, "atheistic, heavy-metal-listening, and bitter, but not really Satanic or a killer") youth. Reid tells him that, like a lot of people, he's misinterpreted Nietzsche.
- Hollywood Satanism: Defied. The small town immediately assumes that the crimes are Satanic rituals. The BAU's first public act in the place is to tell the audience that the FBI has never found evidence of a Satanic ritualistic crime. Unsurprisingly, the BAU is correct in assuming that this is not the case.
- Joggers Find Death: The Victims of the Week are a high school couple out jogging.
- Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal: The sheriff is convinced that he knows everything about his town so well that he can't comprehend how somebody there could commit murder. It gets worse when it turns out his son is the killer.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: When the UnSub is cornered, Morgan accuses him of this. He denies it long enough to get tackled.Morgan: You're just a horny kid that wanted to get rid of the cheerleader's boyfriend.
- Please Wake Up: Cherish when she finds Adam's dead body, followed by a Big "NO!" when she notices the UnSub.
- Retroactive Recognition: Yes, Breaking Bad fans, that's Aaron Paul as Mike Zizzo.
- Ripped from the Headlines: While the case at hand has nothing to do with it, the satanic panic and the scapegoating of the unpopular, "gothic" kids is taken from the West Memphis 3 case.
- The Scapegoat: The UnSub attempts to pin the deaths on the LOD led by Zizzo.
- Spanner in the Works: As it turns out, Cherish wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the murder site. Cory just wanted to kill Adam and make it look like the LOD did it themselves. Adam just brought his girlfriend to work out together, and Cory was forced to kidnap and kill her too. Leading to his arrest.Cory: It wasn't supposed to go down this way. It his his run! He runs that trail every day, not her!
- Teens Are Monsters: The UnSub is a high school student.
- There Are No Coincidences: Cory should've really let the FBI find things out by themselves, because if he'd kept his mouth shut, Gideon and Morgan wouldn't have figured the coincidences keep popping up every time he opens his mouth. However, as they note, this is justified, as most serial killers literally can't help but inject themselves into the investigation, either through pride, obsession, or an attempt to see how close they're getting. Cory's motivations seem to be a mix of all three (as well as attempting to direct blame to scapegoats).
- Town with a Dark Secret: Turns out all of the most popular students knew about the skeleton found at the crime scene, and never told anyone and watched him decompose like it were a game.
- Gideon: Playwright Eugene Ionesco said, "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
