The Replicator
Directed by Glenn Kershaw
Written by Erica Messer
The season's arch-villain, "The Replicator", makes Strauss OD on metamphetamine, kidnaps Alex, and lures the rest of the BAU to his basement while the house is rigged with explosives.Written by Erica Messer
Rossi: "Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober; not to make us sorry but wise." H.G. Wells.
Tropes in this episode
- Callback:
- Rossi reminds everyone that last year at this time (i.e. the Season 7 finale) they celebrated JJ's wedding.
- Garcia recalls the time Strauss called and she thought it was Morgan and answered "talk dirty to me" from season 3's "In Name and Blood".
- Character Death: The Replicator kills Section Chief Erin Strauss, a longtime recurring character in the series.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Strauss dies in Hotch's arms when he finds her in her final moments after the Replicator poisoned her, with Hotch comforting her as she dies.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- The Replicator is caught by his own bomb trap. With a heavy helping hand from Rossi, but still.
- Rossi thwarting his plans was thanks to his own actions, as well. Earlier in the episode, he sends Rossi a forged, poisoned letter falsely implicating Morgan with being involved in Strauss's death. The goal seems to have been that the drugs would make Rossi paranoid and erratic enough to attack Morgan, which nearly happens, but Morgan and Hotch talk Rossi down, then get him admitted to the hospital to get the drugs out of his system. As a result, he's not with the rest of the team when they raid the Replicator's hideout and doesn't show up until later, which allows him to free them from a trap that he otherwise might have fallen into with the rest of them if he'd been with them to begin with.
- Similarly Strauss leaving her sobriety chip behind to be found by Rossi was because he attacked her. Said chip is what Rossi uses to shimmy the door lock to guarantee his escape.
- Ironic Echo: "Zugzwang", which the Replicator has used multiple times during the season to taunt the team (beginning with the titular episode), is thrown back in his face by Rossi right before locking him in his own trap-room with a bomb about to go off.
- No Hugging, No Kissing: Rossi's relationship with Strauss is pretty much entirely inferred. They never so much as hold hands, and he calls her his friend, but he also has a key to her hotel room, is shown to know her children and everyone treads very carefully around him after she is killed.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The other members of the team, sans Rossi, find Blake Bound and Gagged in the trap the Replicator left her in, but releasing her results in all of them being locked in the room, with a bomb just minutes from going off. Soon, though, the Replicator realizes that the bomb didn't go off like it should and goes to see what happened, only to discover that Rossi found and freed them all offscreen.
- One-Steve Limit: Invoked by the Replicator when he asks Aaron Hotchner if it's confusing that his name and "Erin" (Strauss) are pronounced identically.
- Out-Gambitted: The Replicator gets this twice in quick succession:
- After causing the BAU's helicopters to crash, he abducts Blake while everyone's unconscious and uses her to lure the rest of her team into a locked-room trap so they can't escape the bomb explosion that will destroy the whole house; however, Rossi, who came to the house after everyone else, is able to find and free them from the trap.
- Once the Replicator returns to the room and discovers this, he tries to pull a Taking You with Me on Rossi by locking them both in the room so they'd die from the explosion. Unfortunately for him, Rossi knew he'd do this and jammed Strauss's sobriety chip into the door lock so it wouldn't properly lock when it closed, allowing him to open the door long enough to escape himself, but trap the Replicator in there for real.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: One word, even. Rossi just quotes the Replicator's signature "Zugzwang" back at him before leaving him to die in his own trap.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: It turns out that the Replicator's motivation was revenge for being demoted after the same case that also got Blake demoted. He blamed Strauss for it, same as Blake did, and targeted the entire team because of it after Blake joined, both because Strauss is the team's leader and out of envy that Blake was able to make a better recovery, career-wise, than he was.
- Taking You with Me: Once the Replicator realizes that Rossi saved his teammates from the former's trap, he triggers the door to close with the two of them still in it, figuring he can at least kill Rossi along with himself. Rossi, however, thwarts this by revealing that he jammed the door so he could open it and let himself out, then proceeds to close it behind him with only the Replicator trapped inside.
- Hotchner: "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life." Richard Bach.
