The Road Home
Directed by Joe Mantegna
Written by Bruce Zimmerman
Rossi takes vacation days to look for his former Marine Corps sergeant (Meshach Taylor) who hasn't been returning his calls. Meanwhile, a man is killing people he deems responsible for his family's deaths, and while he's at it he kills people who abuse people where he can hear it.Written by Bruce Zimmerman
Morgan: "Beware the fury of a patient man." John Dryden.
Tropes in this episode
- Bilingual Bonus: Reid speaks Korean.
- Callback: Rossi searches and finds his missing former sergeant Harrison Scott, who he reconnected with in an earlier episode.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with JJ being grabbed and abducted.
- Driven to Suicide: The UnSub ultimately kills himself when the BAU inform him he killed the wrong person. He was already suicidal by the start of the episode, and the vigilante killings were used to postpone the moment.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When the UnSub is out of victims to get revenge on, he overhears a guy in the bar he's in telling an employee about how he dealt with the neighbor's kid letting their dog poop on his lawn by moving the dog poop to their doorstep, while also blaming the child's parents for not raising him right. This gives the UnSub motivation to go after his final victim, the mother of the man who killed his family.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The UnSub's first few targets are a trio of gangbangers trying to rob a couple of old men, a purse snatcher and an abusive husband assaulting his ex-wife.
- Like Father, Like Son: Rossi reminds Harrison's son of this, as a subtle warning that maybe one day his son will have a kid he wants to protect from embarrassment by his father.
- Mistaken Identity: A tragic example: the UnSub kills who he believes is a former District Attorney employee who was bribed into suppressing information that would have gotten his family's killer a life sentence. Unbeknown to him, his actual target had sold the house to his brother, whom the UnSub shot on his doorstep.
- Revenge by Proxy: Since the killer of his family died in prison, the UnSub targets others related to the case, such as the drug dealer who supplied the meth the killer was on at the time, the DA's assistant who was bribed into suppressing information that would have guaranteed a life sentence, and the killer's mother, whose testimony swayed the jury into giving him a lighter sentence.
- Rooting for the Empire: In-Universe. The ex-wife of one of the UnSub's victims openly tells the BAU she's grateful to the guy for finally ridding the world of her abusive ex after the police failed and says she hopes the UnSub evades them.
- Sympathetic Murderer: The UnSub's family were killed while he was working a night shift during a burglary gone wrong. The killer's family were able to use their influence to get their son a lighter sentence, and the killer died in a prison fight just before he was due to be released, robbing the UnSub of his chance for revenge. With the exception of one, most of his victims in the episode were deserving.
- Vigilante Man: The UnSub targets people who engage in any criminal activity. He runs over a purse-snatcher and later shoots a man who’s physically abusive towards his ex-wife. The woman in question expresses relief over his death and hopes the BAU doesn’t find him.
- Rossi: "Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." Paul Bausa.
