A Slave Of Duty
Directed by Charles Haid
Written by Rick Dunkle
The team (minus Hotch) are called away from Haley's funeral on a Thursday to investigate murders that seem to occur every Friday. The UnSub makes his victims romantic dinners before he kills them, living out a fantasy where in his head, they're his girlfriends until they go off-script.Written by Rick Dunkle
Hotchner: Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts." Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Tropes present in this episode:
- Heroic Sacrifice: Jake shouts for his girlfriend to run but seeing him stabbed several times by the UnSub is too much for her.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Subverted. When the third victim's boyfriend shows up unexpectedly, the UnSub gets mad that she is cheating on him.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Prentiss takes great delight in hissing out a long, drawn-out fantasy of the rapist being punished with prison rape once they catch him.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Reid compares the UnSub to Ted Bundy, who also recreated fantasies and murdered women who reminded him of the first one he lost.
- Shoot the Dog: To make sure we don't assume there is anything sympathetic about this UnSub, he kills the dog belonging to the most recent victim when the BAU gets on the case.
- Stalker with a Crush: The UnSub is this to every one of his weekly victims.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: The killer snapped when he found out his fiancée was cheating on him with his best man. He then started stalking women who reminded him of her and forcing them to act as his girlfriend, killing them if they went off-script.
- Victim of the Week: In-universe. This UnSub murders on a weekly basis.
- Hotchner: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson.
