Natural Born Killer
Directed by Peter Ellis
Written by Debra J Fisher & Andrew Wilder
Written by Debra J Fisher & Andrew Wilder
Gideon: Hemingway wrote, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else."
A Maryland mobster tortures three more of his hundred plus victims to death, and an undercover cop goes missing on the same night. Morgan gets suspicious of how the last murder victim was discovered — in seven different garbage dumpsters. Baker, the undercover cop, is found tied up in the UnSub's father's house in the process of being bitten to death by rats.
This episode provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: The UnSub's father regularly beat him and his mother.
- Eaten Alive: One of the UnSub's favorite ways to kill someone is to incapacitate them and watch animals (mostly rats) eating them alive.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: This causes the UnSub to make a mistake.
- Foil: Hotch reveals to Perotta that he himself also grew up in an abusive family, but that's where the similarities end.Hotch: It's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers.
Perotta: Some people?
Hotch: What's that?
Perotta: You said some people grow up to be killers.
Hotch: ...And some people grow up to catch them. - Genius Bruiser: The UnSub is intelligent and methodical. He also nearly killed Hotchner with his bare hands.
- Human Head on the Wall: Downplayed again. The team comes across a wall where the UnSub has photos of all his victims when they were alive.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Between BAU and Organized Crime, who insists that the crime being mob related makes it their turf.
- Mercy Kill: The UnSub slashes the throat of an elderly woman to ensure she dies quickly because she reminds him of his mother. The woman's husband isn't as lucky.
- No Kill like Overkill: The UnSub takes his time to torture his victims before killing them. Only one or at least a few lucky ones get a quick death.
- Professional Killer: The UnSub, Vincent Perotta, works as a mob hitman.
- Properly Paranoid: Discussed.Perotta: Hey Jason, is it still called "paranoid" if I'm right?
- Ripped from the Headlines: Perotta is based on Richard Kuklinski.
- Self-Made Orphan: Perotta fantasized about, and eventually killed his own abusive father. He continue torturing men who remind him of him.
- Snuff Film: Perotta keeps recordings of some of his victims being eaten alive by rats.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: The BAU's initial suspect for the murders is an undercover Vice cop.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Played with. Perotta had a hard time killing his sole female victim and even then did it quickly as opposed to the Cold-Blooded Torture that he performs on all his male ones. Even then it's implied that his remorse over doing so is making him sloppy and easier to catch.
- Gideon: Carl Jung said, "The healthy man does not torture others. Generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers."
