Safe Haven
Directed By Andy Wolk
Written by Alicia Kirk
A boy who was abandoned by his mother takes it out on other people's mothers by murdering their families in front of them.Written by Alicia Kirk
Morgan: "All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul." Mahatma Gandhi
Provides examples of:
- Bad People Abuse Animals: It's hinted at that Jeremy killed his neighbors' dog.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the team discusses the UnSub having to appear trustworthy and someone the families would welcome into their homes, Reverend Hannum picks up a young teen in his car, making him appear to be a killer Pedophile Priest. However, when it shows the crime scene the next day with the victim in the passenger seat... it's the reverend instead of the boy.
- Big Brother Bully: Jeremy was this to his little sister. He even went as far as breaking her arm.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Jeremy pulls this along with Wounded Gazelle Gambit to get close to his victims.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Jeremy constantly fails to threaten Nancy because she keeps treating him kindly despite him taking her hostage, which frustrates him. When she refuses to admit she hates him, he stabs her.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Jeremy is a teenage Psycho Knife Nut who annihilates the families that let him into their homes, having bought his innocent act.
- Fetus Terrible: Kendra believed this, considering that Jeremy consumed his twin in the womb. Jeremy did actually grow up as an Enfante Terrible.
- Gone Horribly Right: Jeremy's mother abandoned him at a hospital in the hopes authorities would figure out he was a sociopath — and they did, after the whole thing turned into a murder investigation.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jeremy attempts to drag down the son of the Riverton family by saying he is as messed up as he is. (Basing this only on the other boy's sexual preferences.) He's also envious of his little sister, whom his mother loves.
- Hidden Depths: Rossi surprises everyone by knowing stuff about Grand Theft Auto IV.
- I Have No Son!: Kendra first denies that she has a son when Prentiss calls to talk to her about him.
- Let's See YOU Do Better!: Kendra asks her mother if she'd want to take care of Jeremy instead after her mother says that there must've been a better way than leaving him.
- Loophole Abuse: As the BAU researches Jeremy, they figure out that his mother exploited the state's "safe haven" law (to prevent abortions and child abuse, a minor can be dropped at a hospital and given for adoption, no questions asked) because the law doesn't have an explicit cutoff point for the minors in question (as Kendra explains eventually, she hoped that the state would somehow figure out Jeremy is a sociopath and incarcerate him). Rossi points out the way the law is supposed to work with some outrage at how it was exploited.
- No, Except Yes:
- When a man who introduces himself as a Reverend offers a kid named Jeremy a ride home, Jeremy replies that he is not supposed to get into cars with strangers. The man then offers him a ride to a nearby gas station, and Jeremy accepts.
- Prentiss says they can't diagnose a minor with an anti-social personality disorder, so she would instead call the UnSub a "budding psychopath".
- The reason qualifies as this as well: all adolescents profile as sociopaths.
- Offing the Annoyance: Jeremy stabs Nancy, the mother he took hostage and forced to drive to his house, when they arrive to the vicinity and Nancy annoys him by keeping on trying to see some inner good in him (in her defense, Jeremy was probably planning to stab her anyway). Downplayed in that Nancy is revealed to have survived.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Discussed repeatedly. Nebraska's safe haven laws let parents leave children of any age at hospitals, no questions asked.
- Ellie's mother also abandoned Ellie and her husband Matt years ago, and never came into contact with her daughter due to focusing on work, which Morgan calls out. Ellie's mother responds that she really tried, that Matt said that they were better off without her, and proves that she never stopped caring when she shows them a journal where she wrote to and about Ellie every day.
- Power of Love: Nancy is a firm believer in this. Jeremy stabs her after one assurance too many.
- Shout-Out: Jeremy uses the alias "Niko Bellic" when on the run.
- The Sociopath: Jeremy displays all the signs of conduct disorder
, which is frequently a precursor to sociopathy in adulthood. He can't pay attention to anything for more than a few minutes, has a serious lack of impulse control, lies compulsively and convincingly, killed his neighbor's dog, regularly tortures his little sister, and tried to poison his entire family with rat poison in the Thanksgiving turkey. After being abandoned by his mom, he goes on a cross country killing spree as he attempts to return home and murder her, killing entire families and torturing the mothers. He has no real emotions (as is repeatedly demonstrated), but fakes them incredibly well, and at one point expresses a very creepy sexual interest in a girl who can't be much more than ten. Rossi suggests that they should keep him on file for a reason. - Tampering with Food and Drink: While talking with her mother about the awful things Jeremy did in the past, Kendra mentions that one Thanksgiving, Jeremy put rat poison in the turkey.
- Teens Are Monsters: Jeremy is a budding psychopath.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Nancy spends her entire time on screen being a very nice woman who definitely doesn't deserve the violence Jeremy inflicts on her (furthermore, he stabs her not just because they had arrived at Jeremy's home but to shut her up when she tries to assure him there must be some degree of good in him). Subverted when the BAU mentions shortly after that she was found just in time to take to a hospital.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Jeremy attempts to invoke this on Morgan. However, due to the latter really disliking violent crimes against children, and the fact that Jeremy had several younger children as victims as well as a child hostage, Morgan reassures him that he wouldn't hesitate to shoot a killer.
- Morgan: "But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost.
