What Happens At Home...
Directed by Jan Eliasberg
Written by Edward Allen Bernero
A New Mexico murderer has a similar MO to the serial killer father of FBI cadet Ashley Seaver (Rachel Nichols), so it makes sense to recruit her to help solve the case.Written by Edward Allen Bernero
Hotchner: "When we were children, we used to think when we grew up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable." Writer Madeleine L'Engle.
Provides examples of:
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!: In-Universe, the Trope Namer is one-sidedly conversed by Reid to Prentiss as they arrive.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Downplayed with Detective Ruiz. He seems like an upstanding, capable detective when the team meets him, but turns out to have a very aggressive interrogation style that proves ineffective for solving the case. In the end, though, he’s not the killer.
- Played totally straight with the UnSub, who plays the part of a loving, grieving father and husband flawlessly right up until he pulls a knife on Seaver.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: Ashley isn’t exactly an innocent, but she is a trainee unused to the intensity of the BAU’s job. The poor girl gets showered with Drew’s blood when Hotch kills him.
- Cool Big Sis: Prentiss tries to play a mentor role for Seaver. This aspect of their relationship continues in later episodes.
- Doesn't Trust Those Guys: They try to hide it, but the BAU does not trust the grown children of serial killers they have caught.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Heather asks Seaver if they're going to shoot the one responsible for her mother's death. Unfortunately, that soon comes when her father is revealed to be the killer.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The local authorities and the FBI had trouble telling apart the killer from every other man in his gated community. By design, nearly every man in the community had similar careers, social and economic status, and even some shared character traits.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Despite her father murdering twenty-five women before she was ten, Ashley is among the most moral and dedicated agents in FBI.
- Meaningful Name: Ashley chooses to ditch her father's surname "Beauchamp", which means "beautiful field", for her mother's maiden name "Seaver", meaning "fierce stronghold".
- Red Herring: Both the local detective and the community’s security chief do a bad job not acting suspicious, withholding information and doing things without the BAU’s input. In the end, though, neither is the UnSub.
- Remember the New Guy?: Ashley Seaver is introduced. Partially subverted, as only Hotch and Rossi claim to have met her before. They met her when she was a child before the start of the series, but this is apparently their first interaction with Ashley as an adult.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Seaver pities the killer, knowing the guilt he feels for his daughter. She also realizes his feelings of fatigue over trying to hide his crimes and his true nature.
- Til Murder Do Us Part: Drew's penultimate kill was his wife, likely because she was getting too suspicious about his outings.
- Rossi: "Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them." Writer Oscar Wilde.
