A Higher Power
Directed by Felix Enriquez Alcala
Written by Michael Udesky
A woman finds her husband dead, and his cop brother believes it is a murder made to look like a suicide. The BAU profile the UnSub's victimology to be made up of grieving parents, which fits with the policeman's brother. They profile him as an Angel of Death type of murderer.Written by Michael Udesky
Rossi: "There is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession." Daniel Webster.
Tropes
- Danger Takes a Backseat: The Unsub steps into his would-be final victim's backseat and moves to try and kill her. This backfires on him when she suddenly guns the engine and smashes into a nearby shed, incapacitating him just in time for the BAU to arrive.
- Dark Humor: When Emily asks Garcia to find a drug that subdues people, Garcia says she just uses copious amounts of alcohol.
- Irony:
- The only reason the BAU gets involved is because a local cop becomes convinced after the death of his brother that the recent rash of suicides must actually be serial murders, and does everything he can to convince everyone else of this. His brother turns out to be the only one who actually committed suicide.
- The episode spends some time following a mother who was one of the various people who lost her children in a fire and are in a support group (which the killer is using to target them). She is the one member who is most visibly depressed, but when the killer approaches her to offer her a Mercy Kill, she turns into a Defiant Captive and is responsible for his arrest.
- Never Suicide: A suspicious sudden spike in suicides in the community is believed by a detective to be the work of a serial killer, and he turns out to be right. Subverted when it turns out that the suicide that made the detective suspicious (that of his brother) is investigated by the BAU and they have to tell the detective that it did not fit the killer's MO (the brother killed himself in the bathtub, the serial killer was fond of hanging his victims).
- Mercy Kill: The Unsub believes himself to be doing this to the bereaved people he meets in grief support groups.
- There Are No Coincidences: Double-subverted for drama. The one suicide the detective that calls the BAU actively hopes is not a coincidence turns out to be a coincidence. At least the guy who killed everybody else was brought to justice.
- Prentiss: "The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering." Ben Okri.
