God Complex
Directed by Larry Teng
Written by Breen Frazier
An UnSub practices whole limb transplants on unwilling patients to find a way to give his disabled wife a functioning leg.Written by Breen Frazier
Reid: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "When a doctor does go wrong, he's the first of criminals. He has the nerve and he has knowledge."
Tropes in this episode:
- The Faceless: Reid's mystery friend is always shot so that one doesn't see her face. She seems to be very afraid of a 'him', possibly a stalker, and she and Reid have apparently never met.
- LEGO Body Parts: The UnSub thinks he can do this by cutting two people's legs and switching them with the other. It doesn't really work as much as he likes to believe it does, as none of them can really move with it.
- Mad Doctor: The UnSub. Well, he's actually a mortician, but he thinks of himself as a surgeon.
- Obliviously Evil: The surgeon honestly thought his wife would be thrilled by his results — transplanting a leg onto an amputee that he himself amputated.
- Organ Theft: Here, it's not internal organs the UnSub is stealing — it's legs. The first victim is left in a motel with his leg stolen, but no ice bath or note. The second victim gets a note, but is dropped off just outside the ER. He's the one who dies, because the UnSub amputated his leg, sewed the wound closed (poorly), then opened it back up to attach the first victim's stolen leg. The UnSub at least has a sterile(-ish) facility to perform the... operations.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Deconstructed. The UnSub of the week is a Mad Doctor who causes horrifying, deadly torture on people in his attempt to research how to make transplants universal (so he can give his wife a leg transplant) and is very nice to her and other people when he returns home. The deconstruction is when the BAU profile him and explain that the mentality necessary to be a Punch-Clock Villain requires a tremendous Lack of Empathy for the people you hurt "on the clock", which means this is no different from any other kind of sociopathy. Concentration camp leaders are brought up as a specific example.
- Shout-Out: Reid is reading The Sign of Four while waiting for his secret friend to call him back.
- Jareau: "Body and soul cannot be separated for purposes of treatment, for they are one and indivisible. Sick minds must be healed as well as sick bodies." Dr. Jeff Miller.
