Risky Business
Directed by Rob Spera
Written by Jim Clemente
An UnSub gets choking/asphyxiation trending online among teenagers in his son's high school. Several children who join this online event die, and it looks like suicide by hanging. JJ's sister killed herself when she was in her teens, so she recognizes that these are not suicides, and gets the BAU involved. They suspect a boy who has clearly been harming himself for a long time, as well as been admitted to hospitals several times since the death of his mother. Garcia connects with him, but his father lawyers up before she can get answers out of him, but he manages to tell her his administrative password anyway before his father takes him to his mother's grave to kill him.Written by Jim Clemente
Jareau: "Life is a game. Play it. Life is too precious. Do not destroy it." Mother Teresa.
Provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Christopher's dad has Munchausen's by Proxy, and hurts his son so he can get sympathy for taking care of an injured or sick child. This is after Christopher's mother dies from the same abuse.
- Artistic License – Geography: The bulk of the episode takes place in Evanston, Wyoming. As Christopher's father is taking Christopher to his mother's grave, Garcia describes it as halfway between Evanston and Glenrock, Wyoming. This in dialogue and the sherrif's knowledge of the chapel would imply that Glenrock is the next town over, but in fact, Glenrock is 5 hours away on the other side of a very big state.
- Missing Mom: Christopher's mother died, leading to the self-harm.
- Plot Hole: Reid thinks Prentiss's romantic story about a falling star contains a massive Artistic License – Physics, since meteors burn up in the atmosphere, and those that don't burn up certainly don't shatter when they hit the ground.
- Self-Harm: Christopher becomes a suspect for doing this.
- Shout-Out: Christopher's earring is supposedly the one Johnny Depp wore in Pirates of the Caribbean.
- This Is Not That Trope: JJ explains to Hotch that when you feel trapped, death can feel like the only way out, but that that is not the case in the town where these apparent suicides are taking place.
- Too Dumb to Live: The kids don't seem to understand that by hanging themselves, they are killing themselves. They make fun of Reid when he tries to explain that oxygen deprivation causes brain damage.
- Would Hurt a Child: Christopher's father. He's been hurting his own son for years and is willing to cause any number of high school kids to die.
- Jareau: "Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn." C.S. Lewis.
