52 Pick-Up
Directed by Bobby Roth
Written by Breen Frazier
The grown son of a cleaning lady is still upset that one of her clients' daughter was a jerk to him when they were children. As an UnSub he has two different victimologies, but one methodology: he lures his victims to his hotel room, disembowels them, and forces them to clean up after themselves with their intestines hanging out, then slits their throats. The team profiles him as a pick-up artist.Written by Breen Frazier
Prentiss: Author Harlan Ellison wrote, "The minute people fall in love, they become liars."
Tropes
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Prentiss theorises one of the UnSub's victims jumped from a balcony in an attempt to escape him.
- Character Focus: Emily Prentiss and Jordan Todd.
- Creepy Child:
- The Unsub was this as a child, as noted by his mother's former employer.
- Said employer's daughter was also a bit creepy as a child, but she presumably grew out of it.
- Disposable Sex Worker: The killers' original victims. One of whom survived, recognizes the police sketch, and then gives the team valuable information. She confesses to scarring the killer.
- Dramatic Drop: The waitress at the café who recognizes the man in the police sketch on tv drops the tray she is holding, nachos and everything.
- Heroic Bystander: The bartender Reid talked to earlier stops the UnSub from taking a new victim by “accidentally” spilling a drink on the counter. This saves his would-be victim, but the bartender gets kidnapped instead.
- Lifesaving Misfortune: The waitress who recognises the UnSub explains to Hotch and Rossi at the time of her attack, she was a prostitute and a junkie who was probably days away from a fatal overdose, and surviving the attack motivated her to turn her life around.
- My Card: Reid uses sleight of hand to put his card behind a bartender's ear to give her his number.
- Romantic Wingman: Morgan decides to help Reid pick up girls by getting him to perform magic for the club’s bartender.
- Stealth Insult: One of the techniques taught by the pickup artist instructor is negging.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Emily accurately predicts how flirting with a misogynistic pick-up artist is going to feel.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Hotch chews out Jordan for lying on the case and tells her that her lie could cost people’s trust if they get caught for lying.
- Who's Laughing Now?: When the Unsub was a kid, his mother's boss's daughter blamed him for a prank she had just as much blame in, smiling as her mother beat him. Years later, this girl becomes his first victim.
- Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: Prentiss, before she realizes that she's going to have to be the one to flirt with the pick up artist.
- Rossi: P.J. O'Rourke wrote, "Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely."
