Aftermath
Directed by Tim Matheson
Written by Chris Mundy, Andrew Wilder, & Edward Napier
Written by Chris Mundy, Andrew Wilder, & Edward Napier
Gideon: Helen Keller once said, "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it."
A rapist targets college girls to get them pregnant. When one gets pregnant, she kills herself because abortion is against her religion. After a short break he starts raping again, this time targeting women in their thirties who've visited a fertility clinic and filled out a questionnaire. Elle struggles with the parallels between this UnSub attacking women in their homes and the "Fisher King" attacking her in her home a few episodes ago.
This episode provides examples of:
- Driven to Suicide: One of the rapists' victims chose the sin of suicide over the sin of abortion, given that she was Catholic.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Invoked by the UnSub, who initially targets Catholic schoolgirl, thinking they won't abort the resulting baby due to their religious beliefs. When this drives one of his victims to commit suicide, taking the baby with her, he changes to targeting women who were visiting fertility clinics, believing that woman already seeking to get pregnant won't terminate the resulting pregnancy.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Elle going off-script causes everyone to have to apprehend the suspect before they had any evidence of wrongdoing. It's implied that she did this on purpose so she could kill him, rather than merely sending him to prison.
- Police Are Useless:
- Averted, the local police are highly competent and were genuinely trying to catch the serial rapist. The lead detective is shown to be intelligent and insightful, and even Gideon compliments her.
- Elle accuses the cops of being useless, but this just her spiraling out of control.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The rapist is dead by the end, but only because of costly vigilante justice by Elle, which leads to her turning in her badge in the next episode.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While Elle has been starting since she was shot in the final episode of Season 1, this was when it reached its boiling point. She blames everyone for their incompetence regarding letting another victim occur, and blames the rest of the BAU for the rapist's freedom.
- She also declares she blames Hotch personally for her getting shot, just to hurt him in retaliation for him questioning her.
- Vigilante Execution: Elle does this to the rapist in the end. It's not played as a heroic act. Hotch in fact believes that Elle deliberately botched the sting so that she could execute the rapist.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Elle attempts to give one to Hotch before Gideon brings her out and gives her a gentler one in turn, before the UnSub himself calls her out on her actions with his Evil Gloating.
