North Mammon
Directed by Matt Earl Beesley
Written by Andrew Wilder & Edward Napier
Written by Andrew Wilder & Edward Napier
Jareau: Legendary basketball coach, John Wooden said, "It's not so important who starts the game, but who finishes it."
Three high school girls are kidnapped right before graduation, and find themselves locked inside a cold, wet bunker, with an unseen man demanding that two of them kill a third to go free, otherwise they'll all be left to die. With seemingly no other options, the girls begin to grow increasingly desperate, even as the team arrives in town to find them.
This episode provides examples of:
- The Bad Guy Wins: While the UnSub does end up arrested, his plan for the girls ultimately worked, and one ended up dead.
- Basement Woman: All three girls are kept in a basement by the killer, although they aren't sexually assaulted.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The UnSub believed this was the case for the three girls. While we don't see much of their lives first-hand, they don't really do anything worse than bicker like teenagers do.
- Bittersweet Ending: More on the bitter side. Two of the girls are rescued and the UnSub is arrested. However, he succeeded in getting two girls to kill their friend and the surviving girls are traumatized from the experience.
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: The two surviving girls, after the third was killed.
- A Day in the Limelight: Downplayed, but JJ gets some Back Story and Character Development in this episode.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The UnSub blames his old high school friends for taking the scholarship that "belonged" to him, which he lost after a football injury that was nobody's fault, and decides to take his revenge on three completely innocent teenagers.
- Foreshadowing: The bickering between Brooke and Kelly at the start of the episode, with Polly being the one in the middle. Kelly attempts to kill Brooke, only to be killed in retaliation. Polly is conflicted throughout.
- The coach's speech at the beginning would also qualify, though with a lot less subtlety.
"Our children will be asked a question. How they answer that will define us all. The question is: when...life and death, hang in the balance, WHAT. ARE. YOU. CAPABLE. OF?" - I Gave My Word: After Brooke kills Kelly, the UnSub frees her and Polly, drops them off close to town, and even give them back their phones so they can call for help.
- Future Loser: The UnSub was this, while the other members of the team weren't.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Brooke has a cough throughout the episode, which is made worse by her captivity. Kelly cites it as proof that Brooke will probably die anyway. Ultimately subverted, in that it isn't Brooke who dies.
- Irony: Mrs. Seymour calls Brooke and Polly "bad seeds" caused by low breeding. At that exact moment, her own daughter was killed in self-defense after being the only one of the trio to actually attempt to kill one of the others.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Kelly says that if she and Polly kill Brooke, it doesn't mean they're bad people and that they just did what they had to do. For her troubles, she is killed by their would-be victim first.
- Killing in Self-Defense: Brooke kills Kelly because Kelly planned on killing her to set herself and Polly free from their captor.
- Let's You and Him Fight:
- The UnSub's plan is to cause the girls to fight to the death, as one needs to die so the other two can be freed. It works.
- To a lesser degree, the parents and coach of the girls' soccer team also end up bickering and blaming each other for the kidnapping.
- Manipulative Bastard: The UnSub takes away most of the girls’ clothes, puts them in a cold basement, and deprives them of food and water with intention to turn the girls against each other and force two of them to kill one of their friends.
- Sadistic Choice: The UnSub kidnaps the three girls and gives them two choices: two of them kill one of their friends and be set free or all three will die from the cold and lack of food and water.
- Stepford Suburbia: The town of North Mammon looks like a very nice place to live, until something bad happens and it turns out it's full of Jerk Jocks and Alpha Bitches willing to tear each other apart. The UnSub did what he did because he was ostracized by the members of town who were all in the same class with him.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: The two surviving girls, after being freed.
- Tranquil Fury: When the UnSub mockingly tells the sheriff that he’ll be cleaning up the UnSub’s messes for once, Gideon quietly tells his men to take the criminal away, disgusted by how unsympathetic the man was that he forced three friends to turn on each other.
- Wham Shot: Two:
- After Kelly and Polly say they agree to the UnSubs terms, he drops a pair a hammers into the room. It's then that they (and the viewers) realize, realize he's not making them choose who dies, but making them do the killing as well.
- An In-Universe one when the BAU see the freed girls...but see that there's only two.
- What the Hell, Hero?: JJ gives the parents a good chewing out when they decide to act petty and blame each other for their daughters being abducted rather than do anything to help find the girls.
- Jareau: "The ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is given to transcend himself, is to create or destroy, to love or to hate." Erich Fromm.
