Fear and Loathing
Written by Aaron Zelman & Andrew Wilder
An UnSub targets young black girls. The police aren't sure if it's a race issue, and the BAU find it weirdly downplayed for a hate crime. A threatening note written to one of the victims is discovered to be from another girl, who reveals she was jealous about the victim's boyfriend, another victim, after a talent show. Said boyfriend is white, and a local reverend is mad that the BAU only showed after he was killed.
The team profiles the UnSub as a black male who targets "good girls" with musical ambitions. They police chief refuses to release the profile, knowing that the black community won't be happy to hear the UnSub is black. A black policeman is more concerned that it would put a target on every local black man's back. JJ ends up releasing the profile anyway, and sure enough, a black man — the aforementioned policeman — gets killed by a hypervigilant white man.
A girl comes forward and identifies the UnSub as a security guard at the local high school.
Tropes
- Artistic License – Geography: The episode takes place mainly in Groton, New York. When JJ first introduces the case, she says Groton is a suburb in Westchester County. Groton is actually in Tompkins County, which is 219 miles northwest of Westchester County.
- Blatant Lies: A girl sees through the killer's ruse because his business card just contains his own name and number, and also because the girl already knows who he is.
- Creepy Souvenir: The team believes the souvenir the UnSub takes is the key to his identity, but they don't know what it is yet. It turns out to be their voices, as he records them singing before he kills them.
- Ending Memorial Service: Complete with Amazing Freaking Grace playing, in memory of the detective who is shot by a civilian who thought he fit the profile of the UnSub.
- High on Homicide: Terrance Wakeland gets off to the voices of the girls he kills.Terrance: You ever feel that way? Like there's something so beautiful... so beautiful you can't let it live to show you... to remind you of how ugly you are?
- Mistaken for Racist:
- The police department and the BAU, since the latter only gets involved after a white man is caught in the crossfire.
- Doesn't help that the crime is sex-related, so the UnSub was profiled as a black man since his victims were. The in-universe Unfortunate Implications are even discussed when they consider releasing the profile to the media.Gideon: Racial profiling is basing the profile on race. We gave you a profile that includes race.
- Invoked by the mayor, who is reluctant to tell people that the serial killer is most likely black for fear of being considered racist.
- And then when Srgt. War, who is black, reluctantly informs the public of this, that backfires when a vigilante shoots Ware thinking he is the UnSub.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is a reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
- Morgan and Prentiss bond over a shared love of Kurt Vonnegut.
- Will Not Be a Victim: Ally Hadley, despite being drugged at the time, manages to kick Terrance Wakeland in the crotch and escape and find help while he's reeling in pain.
- Reid: "The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living." Cicero.
