About Face
Directed by Skipp Sudduth
Written by Charles Murray
Gideon has left, but his co-founder of the BAU, David Rossi, comes out of retirement to take his place. A woman finds a "missing" poster of herself on her door, left there by a stalker who rapes his victims before cutting off their faces and drowning them. The team profiles his motivation as feeling ignored and transfering the feeling to his victim.Written by Charles Murray
Hotchner: Erasmus wrote, "What else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on, and plays each one his part until the manager waves them off the stage?"
This episode provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: After being introduced to JJ, Rossi comments that they didn't have that ten years ago. Hotch looks a bit offended when he asks what Rossi means. Rossi meant a communications coordinator.
- Berserk Button: Rossi intentionally pushes Poole’s so he'll make a mistake. First by saying on tv that the masks he leaves behind represent impotence, and then again when he says that when they catch him he'll just be some loser nobody, just like he always has been.
- Establishing Character Moment: Rossi gets a big one before the intro. Basically telling someone (Strauss) to cancel their appointment because he's "coming in" - showing he's bossy and doesn't take no for an answer. We see he's retired as he pulls his old FBI IDs. That he was successful as he has an award plaque from the White House. We see from how he dresses and his gold ring that he's rich. And lastly attention is drawn to him keeping a pendant with three names on it, which is foreshadowing to his initial character arc. His next scene is with Strauss and we immediately see the dynamic is different. Hotch treats Strauss as a boss, Rossi is on first name basis with her and basically shuts down all her questions about his return. To her credit, Strauss immediately establishes that there's something fishy about Rossi wanting to return to the BAU after 10 years of retirement.
- Friend to All Children: Reid, Prentiss, and Morgan give some children candy for Halloween after wrapping up the case.
- Halloween Episode: The episode takes place on Halloween, and though the holiday itself is hardly central, the theme is masks and the UnSub cuts the faces off his victims and leaves a mask behind.
- Meaningful Name: Max Pool drowns his victims.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Subverted. The victims aren't even missing yet when "missing" posters of them are hung up. They are, however, found dead.
- That One Case: This is the first time Rossi mentions Diana and Richard Galen and their three children.
