Reckoner
Directed by Karen Gaviola
Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
A professional killer goes on a revenge spree against people who hurt children. A widowed and dying judge is revealed to be behind it, resenting that he has had to let people go who he felt were guilty because the children who were their victims withdrew the charges.Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Rossi: "Justice without force is powerless. Force without justice is tyrannical." Blaise Pascal.
Tropes present in this episode:
- Asshole Victim: All of the victims were guilty of fairly horrific crimes, only getting off on technicalities or mistakes. The hitman himself proves to be this when he realizes he's about to die and his last act is to start telling a bigoted Irish joke.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Sean, the subordinate of Rossi's mobster friend, is the one who kills Tony Meccaci.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Judge Schuller, who not only succeeds in having all his victims killed and then goes out on his own terms via Better to Die than Be Killed.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: JJ is right next to Schuller when he is shot and gets drenched in his blood.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Ray Finnegan, a mobster and old friend of Rossi, feels that the victims got what they deserved for messing with children.
- I Lied: Said verbatim by Schuller moments before being shot in broad daylight surrounded by the BAU and a crowd of press, revealing that HE was the true final target.
- Rewatch Bonus: The fact that Judge Schuller's name is the last one on the killer's is shown to the audience before the opening credits roll.
- Shout-Out:
- The killer takes his codename from The Duchess of Malfi.
- Emma named her kitten for Oscar Wilde. His favorite play was "An Ideal Husband".
- Terminally-Ill Criminal: The Big Bad is a judge who, having been diagnosed with terminal cancer, decides to hire a hitman to kill a number of criminals who got Off on a Technicality on his watch (the judge also puts his name on the list, accepting that what he's doing is monstrous, and is the last person the hitman kills before getting the hell out of Dodge).
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: In-universe, a father saying he'll kill anyone who hurts his daughter makes his daughter afraid to report her stepfather's abuse of her, whether for not wanting her stepfather dead or for not wanting her father to go to prison on her account, or both.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To And Then There Were None, except that here the judge employs a hitman rather than committing the murders himself.
- Rossi: "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice." Abraham Lincoln
