Damaged
Written & Directed by Edward Allen Bernero
It's the twentieth anniversary of Rossi's That One Case, and the victims' surviving children won't return his calls. Rossi: "Within the core of each of us, is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be." Neuroscientist Dr. R. Joseph.
Hotch and Reid go to interview to an inmate, Chester Hardwick, whose execution is scheduled for next week. Hardwick's plan is to get a stay of execution so they can process his double homicide of two FBI agents.
Prentiss declares the chaotic state of Rossi's office to be a cry for help and takes the rest of the team to where Rossi is. Rossi is angry, at first, but accepts their help in solving the case. They profile the UnSub as simultaneously organized and disorganized, and at any rate either dead or twenty years older. When they go to visit the survivors, they tell Rossi to get lost and stop sending them toys every year, which surprises him, because he has never sent them any toys. From that they profile the UnSub as a mentally disabled person assisted by a parent or guardian.
Provides examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Joe, the mentally handicapped carnival clown UnSub, never wanted to hurt anyone; he wandered off from the carnival and followed the Galens home because he wanted to play with their oldest daughter Connie. He wandered into the parents' room by mistake, and since they were quite understandably alarmed by a big, strange man entering their home and assumed he meant them harm, the father hit Joe with an axe in self-defense, making him angry and causing him to lash out at both parents in turn, only to completely butcher them by mistake because he Does Not Know His Own Strength. According to his father, he instantly regretted it, and that was the reason he tucked them both back in to bed.
- Alone with the Psycho: Hotch and Reid with Chester Hardwick, the death row inmate they are interviewing, during the 15 minutes that the guards are outside with the rest of the prisoners for the yard shift change. Hardwick plans to use this time to murder them both while the guards can't save them and thus delay his execution, since there's no way he'll be executed the following week if he kills two FBI agents. However, Hotch is fully prepared to fight Hardwick, pointing out that the latter's victims were pre-teen girls while Hotch is a full-grown man. And we never find out who would have won anyway, since Reid makes up a profile on the spot to hold the floor until the guards come back.
- Apology Gift: Every year since the murder of the Galens’ parents, Joe, at the urging of his father, has been picking stuffed toys from the carnival and leaving them for the children as his way of trying to apologize for what happened. Naturally, all three are creeped out by the constant gifts, and the eldest daughter initially suspected Rossi of leaving the toys.
- Bittersweet Ending: It's mostly "sweet." Rossi finally solves his cold case and settles into the BAU as a full-fledged team member. Meanwhile, JJ, Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid delight in Garcia's "scandalous" new relationship with Kevin. The "bitter" comes from Hotch, who reluctantly signs the divorce papers served to him by Haley, his now-ex-wife.
- Defrosting Ice King: Since his debut, Rossi has become a little more polite and familiar towards his teammates, but still kept them at arm's length. This is where he fully defrosts towards them after they help him finally solve the cold case that's haunted him for 20 years. He starts out being quite demanding towards Garcia about getting more info for and making progress on the case (to the point of interrupting her personal life in the middle of the night), and is annoyed to discover she filled some of their teammates in, snapping that he doesn't need any help. When Morgan, JJ, and Prentiss arrive in Indianapolis, Rossi curtly tells them to go home and questions why they even care about helping him when it's not a BAU case...until they reply that it's because he cares. He then accepts their help, opens up to them on the details about the case and why it's so important to him, and at the end once they've solved it, tells the Galen kids that his team is waiting for him at the airport. When they return to the office, as opposed to previous episodes where Rossi just walked quietly along with the team, he's shown smiling and chatting with them.
- Dropping the Bombshell: A two-for-one pack when one of the Galen daughters demands that Rossi stop sending them creepy gifts on the anniversary of their parents' deaths. Rossi's response? "Gifts? I never sent you any gifts..."
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Rossi and Prentiss are talking to the father of the UnSub, there's a storefront in the background labeled as "Legacy" and the angle causes Prentiss to cover the first two letters. Said UnSub is a clown.
- Forgot Flanders Could Do That: A minor example, but after the earlier episodes of the show, the fact that different members of the team have different "specialties" gets brought up less and less. Here, after discovering that the UnSub has been sending the kids presents every year, Rossi brings up that obsessional crimes are Morgan's specialty and asks for his thoughts, and Morgan—while talking it through with Rossi and Prentiss—is the one who profiles that the UnSub is developmentally disabled, wanted to play with the kids, killed the parents by mistake thanks to not knowing his own strength, and had a parent covering for him who helped him clean up the crime scene. All of this turns out to be right on the money.
- Friendship Moment:
- When Prentiss, Morgan, and JJ figure out that something is wrong with Rossi, they get Garcia to tell them what's up, then fly out to Indianapolis to help him investigate the Galen case. Rossi, who has still not fully bonded with the rest of the team, initially resists their help and asks them "Why do you care?" Prentiss answers for all of them, "Because you do". Notably, this is when he finally fully realizes that his teammates have his back, and he Takes a Level in Kindness towards them for the rest of the series.
- After Reid's Holding the Floor maneuver saves both him and Hotch from Chester Hardwick without violence, Hotch opens up to Reid about why he's been so short-tempered: Haley wants him to sign the divorce papers without a legal battle.
- Freudian Excuse: Played with. Hardwick denies having this. Hotch points out that he had a worse childhood than he admits to. Then, when they realize the guards aren't coming to let them out, Reid launches into a speech about why he has one, to buy them time.
- Holding the Floor: How Reid distracts Hardwick until the guards come back from shift change.
- Hypocrite: Jennifer assures Garcia that since Rossi is the reason most of the "don't sleep with your co-workers" rules even exist at the FBI, he won't rat her out for sleeping with Kevin, since that would make him this.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Discussed. Garcia and JJ briefly talk about how shower sex always seems like a good idea before you actually try to do it.
- It's All My Fault: Joe's father feels terrible for losing track of him on the day the Galens died, since he was preoccupied with repairing one of the carnival rides; during this time, his son wandered away from the carnival to follow a little girl home, simply wanting to play with her, only to end up killing her parents. He expresses deep guilt at being unable to save the family, and tried to make sure that Joe knew what he did was wrong and felt remorse for it, even insisting on his son sending the kids toys every year. Of course, this doesn't even come close to making up for their loss, and in fact, they just find the presents creepy.
- Kissing In A Tree: How JJ tells Morgan, Prentiss, and Reid about Garcia and Kevin. And poor Reid doesn't know what it means, to Prentiss' utter shock.
- Manchild: Played for Drama and tragedy with the UnSub, who is severely mentally disabled, and murdered his two victims when, after he followed them home from the carnival because he wanted to play with their daughter, the parents thought he was going to hurt their family and attacked him in self-defense, prompting him to fight back and kill them by accident because he Does Not Know His Own Strength.
- Monster Clown: Subverted. The UnSub is a carnival clown, but a mentally disabled one who killed the Galen parents by mistake because they attacked him in self-defense. He hasn't killed anyone again, his father made him understand that it was wrong, and he has remorse for it.
- Must Make Amends: It turns out that this is why the three Galen kids have been receiving toys every year on the anniversary of their parents' death. All that time, they thought it was Rossi sending them as an apology for not being able to catch the killer, but it turns out it was the UnSub himself (or, more accurately, his father having him send them) in a misguided attempt to apologize.
- Naked People Are Funny: Kevin Lynch meeting Dave Rossi. Though it's really only funny for the viewers, everyone else is annoyed or embarassed.
- Neat Freak: Rossi is this to the degree that when he leaves his office in disarray, it looks to Emily like a scream for help.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Reid doesn't know what the "Sitting in a tree..." song means. Prentiss can only stare at him with shock and pity.
- Rags to Riches: Downplayed, but this is the ending for the Galen kids. They start off the episode living dysfunctional lives together in their deceased grandmother's house, barely scraping by (with Connie working in a strip club, Georgie having gotten in a fight and got fired, and Alicia going out with random guys all the time), still haunted with nightmares about their parents' deaths. Once the episode is through and the case has been solved, Rossi gives them their parents' old house that he owns so they can sell it, solving their financial problems, and it's strongly implied that they'll be able to get their lives together now that they have closure, with Connie even asking if she can call Rossi sometimes to let him know how they're doing.
- Revisiting the Cold Case: The 20th Anniversary of That One Case for Rossi, which no one has been working on since the initial investigation, much to his dismay. In this episode, with help from Morgan, JJ, and Prentiss, he finally solves it.
- Shout-Out: The BAU compare the Unsub to Lenny from Of Mice and Men.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Hotch when the death row inmate threatens to kill both him and Reid when they're Alone with the Psycho.Hotch: But unfortunately for you I'm not a five-foot-tall, hundred-pound girl. *takes his vest off* All your life, you've gone after victims who couldn't fight back, and the rest of the time you spent looking over your shoulder, *removes his tie* worried about the knock on the door, scared that somebody like me would be on the other side waiting to put you away. *points at the inmate* At your core, you're a coward.
- True Companions: This is the episode where Rossi finally understands that his BAU teammates are this to him and each other; JJ, Prentiss, and Morgan fly all the way to Indianapolis to help him solve his Cold Case when they notice (and find out from Garcia) how much it's bothering him, and when he asks them why they would do so, they make it clear that it's simply because they care about him.
- Wham Line: In-Universe. The eldest of the three children telling Rossi to stop sending them gifts catches him off guard, as he never sent them any gifts. They all quickly realize the killer did, which proves to be a vital clue.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Joe, the UnSub of the episode, might be considered a downplayed example of one. He brutally killed the Galen parents, but he had no intention of doing so and immediately felt remorse, and it's questionable if he even understood what he was doing at all. When he's finally arrested, he's crying and screaming for his daddy in obvious terror as he's handcuffed.
- Hotchner: "There is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings." Arthur Rubenstein.
