Limelight
Directed by Glenn Kershaw
Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
The contents of a storage unit are auctioned off, and the buyers discover that it contains photographs that they at first assume are bondage porn, but then find writings that make it look like evidence against a serial killer. Rossi goes there and profiles the UnSub as non-existent, in that he only has fantasies he may never act on, and when the agent who asked him to profile the case shows him a zip-bag of hair she claims was also found in the unit, he realizes she's cut off her own hair and is making stuff up, but is unsure of how much.Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Rossi: "I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils." Euripides.
Tropes
- Attention Whore: Jill Morris is an FBI agent who Rossi describes as himself at the beginning of his career, more concerned with the idea of the fame and prestige of capturing a Serial Killer than with protecting victims. The UnSub turns out to be this as well to an extent.
- Batman Gambit: The team are confused by how they stumbled across the case, as the UnSub is shown to be so meticulous and careful that he went unnoticed for years. Yet they only know about him because he defaulted on a storage locker where he kept his research and written fantasies. They eventually realize he has become so bored with getting away with murder that he deliberately set up that discovery. He wanted someone to they start looking for him.
- Believer Fakes Evidence: Agent Morris' gambit to keep the BAU's attention on the case is to present a keepsake of hair and say it was in the UnSub's storage locker. Rossi later realizes the hair belonged to Morris herself, but by then a victim's body has been found.
- Beneath Notice: The killer was careful and meticulous to the point that he went unnoticed for nearly a decade and only allowed himself the limelight because he had become disatisfied by the killings alone.
- Blatant Lies: Rossi knows that Jill is faking evidence to get the BAU on the case, but decides to go with it since it shows that she really believes there is a serial killer at large.
- Foreshadowing: When the first victim is identified, Rossi asks if any of the victim's hair was missing. When he's told no, Detective Morris shifts uncomfortably.
- Present Day: In the timeline they establish on the killer's history, the storage unit is specifically labeled as January 2008. The episode aired on January 23, 2008.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hotch gives Morris a furious dressing down over her decision to hold a press conference, and takes a moment to highlight how she knows the names of serial killers but not the names of their victims'.
- Shout-Out:
- Reid has the entire The Foundation Trilogy on audiobook.
- Rossi mentions that Bundy said it was redundant to burn The Catcher in the Rye to avoid creating people like him.
- Jill Morris compares Hotch's berating her for giving the story to the press to being voted off the island.
- Rossi: "For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world, and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won." Lucille Maud Montgomery.
