Fatal
Directed by Larry Teng
Written by Bruce Zimmerman
An UnSub who believes in the Fates and kills people with arsenic leaves threads on their bodies.Written by Bruce Zimmerman
Hotchner: A proverb states, "He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned."
Tropes
- Call-Back: At the start of the episode, when discussing the UnSub's Your Days Are Numbered MO, Reid references Max Poole
- Freudian Excuse: The UnSub got blamed for his friend's death when he was very young. He read a children's book on Greek mythology in the hospital, and to cope with people blaming him for the other kid's death, he decided to believe in the Fates and their practice of cutting threads to end people's lives. The UnSub calculates that it's a centimeter per year according to the threads he leaves on his victims.
- Get into Jail Free: A man who receives death threats asks to stay in a holding cell for the night to keep him safe. The officer in charge says no, so naturally the man grabs a trash can and hurls it at the glass, earning him a night in jail.
- Stalker without a Crush: The UnSub stalked each victim for months in order to learn about their habits. He also arranged seemingly random interactions with them, in order to get to know them a bit. He was not familiar with them before he started stalking them. As it is revealed, he randomly chose to take out his frustrations on each of the people waiting in line for a coffee at a certain moment. Just because they seemed more satisfied with their lives than he was.
- Super-Speed Reading: Reid uses the principles of speed reading to speed-watch a security tape on fast forward.
- Terminally-Ill Criminal: The Unsub receives a terminal diagnosis after retiring, which is the main stressor that makes him snap and start killing people.
- Rossi: "A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it." Jean de la Fontaine.
