I Love You, Tommy Brown
Directed by John Terlesky
Written by Janine Sherman Barrois
A pedophile woman murders people on her way to find the child she went to prison for raping.Written by Janine Sherman Barrois
Morgan: It was once said that: "Love is giving someone the power to destroy you, but trusting them not to."note
This episode provides examples of:
- Artistic License – History: In-Universe. When Tommy begins to have doubts about his affair with his teacher (after she, you know, shoots his friend), she tries to calm him down and justify their love by saying that in medieval times, 12-year-olds marrying their elders was not unusual (this was only true of the aristocracy, and still wasn't very common); that when Henry VIII (whose own grandmother DID actually birth to his father at the age of 12 and ended up being rendered sterile as a result) married Catherine of Aragon she was a much older woman (she was only 5 years his senior); and that Romeo and Juliet were 13 (true of the play, not of the original story; also, one of the points of the play is that they are too young and their love is childish; also, it's a play). Possibly justified since the teacher is a manipulative, Ax-Crazy sociopath trying to control a not-very-smart teenage boy, and of course she doesn't have to know a lot about history or English literature anyway.
- Bait-and-Switch: The episode begins with a teenage girl sneaking out of her house to meet her boyfriend, insinuating they'll become victims of Terror at Make-Out Point. Instead, the two teens have a romantic evening, the boy escorts the girl back to her house, she sneaks back inside...and finds her parents have been murdered by the UnSub in her absence.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Margaret asks Tommy who Julie is when she unexpectedly comes to Tommy's door, when it's established Julie goes to the same school as Tommy where Margaret worked. This can be excused by Margaret presumably never having Julie in any of her classes before she was arrested.
- Child by Rape: Margaret Hallman conceived a son with Tommy Brown.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Hallman clearly feels this way about Tommy's friend Julie.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Nope. This trope is acknowledged but not in effect, and the UnSub is treated as just as villainous for the affair as she is for the murders she commits. Rossi even lampshades that a male teacher would have gotten 20 years, unlike Maragret Hallman, who was let out early due to overcrowding.
- Not the First Victim: While the murderous teacher hasn't killed anyone before, she does have another molestation victim/underage lover - and she actually named their son after him.
- Say Your Prayers: The social worker killed by the UnSub fearfully recites the Lord’s Prayer when she realizes she’s going to die.
- Shared Family Quirks: Invoked by Margaret when she asks Johnny/Ben's foster mother if he inherited Tommy's peanut allergy.
- Wrong-Name Outburst: The Title Drop of "I Love You, Tommy Brown". Is Tommy the only underage lover of the deranged teacher that is the killer of the week? Nope, he's not the first. There was also a previous boy that she had a relationship with who died, and she became even more (read:homicidally) deranged and obsessed as a result, naming Tommy's child after the deceased student. At the end, after she is shot by the BAU, as Tommy is cradling her, she confesses her undying love... for the first student.
- Morgan: "For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth." Bo Bennett.
