Recap / Criminal Minds S 4 E 16 Pleasure Is My Business

Pleasure Is My Business

Directed by Gwyneth Horder Payton
Written by Breen Frazier

Hotchner: "The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture." Camille Paglia.

A sex worker with daddy issues poisons her clients: in particular, those who are married with children or divorced fathers. In her mind, both types of clients are failing their children.

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Tropes present in this episode:

• Age-Gap Romance: Exploited. The wife of the first victim we see explains that her husband's sexual preferences could be summed up as "24-year-old women".
• Alas, Poor Villain: Megan's death is portrayed as a somber scene.
• Disposable Sex Worker: Inverted. The UnSub in this case is a prostitute.
• Eye Scream: Invoked. A victim seems to be bleeding from the eyes, but it is only lipstick.
• Femme Fatale: To be expected when the killer is a prostitute.
• First-Name Basis: Megan assumes it with Hotch, openly calling him "Aaron", much to the team's surprise.
• Fish out of Water: Prentiss and Reid are hopelessly, hilariously, lost and out of place outside the madam's apartment.
  Madam: You two need lessons in faking it, I teach a class.
• Foil: Discussed. Garcia notes that when Kevin takes her out to dinner and a movie, he defaults on his student loans. The men involved in this case will shell out money for an expensive call girl, but won't pay alimony or child support.
• Go Out with a Smile: Megan dies content, knowing that she has exposed her father's crimes, and is dying with Hotch watching over her, "the first man who didn't let me down".
• High-Class Call Girl: Megan, but it isn't for the money or sex. It's to punish the men on the list.
• Kick the Dog: As is often done when the show has a Sympathetic Murderer killing Asshole Victims, there's a victim who isn't an asshole. In this case, Trent Rabner, a childless widower who had always been faithful to his wife until the end.
• Ms. Fanservice: Megan. She is a call girl after all.
• Predatory Prostitute: Megan Kane is a High-Class Call Girl who kills her married clients for cheating on their wives with her, and/or refusing to pay any child support for kids with their wives or ex-wives. Most of her victims are assholes, but at least one of her victims is a childless widower who was totally faithful to his wife until her death.
• Shout-Out: A victim had a Batman fetish.
• Stay with Me Until I Die: Megan to Hotch. He does.
  Megan: You're the first man I ever met who didn't let me down.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Megan, with her Broken Bird status and what assholes most of her victims are.
• Villainous Breakdown: Megan's killing of Trent marks the beginning of her devolving.
• Women Are Wiser: For a loose definition of "wiser". JJ seems positively smug about the fact that Reid says female serial killers don't murder for sexual gratification but rather because they just want or feel the need to kill, sounding slightly proud as she says, "So women are more efficient killers."

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