Hero Worship
- Reid: "The most heroic word in all languages is revolution." Eugene Debs.
Tropes in this episode
- Accidental Murder: Allen only meant for the coffee house bomb to be large enough to maybe damage the bathroom, but not seriously hurt anyone, as part of some Engineered Heroics. Sadly, he planted the bomb too close to a gas line, making the explosion much larger than he ever intended and causing numerous casualties.
- Bait-and-Switch: The episode begins with a put-upon waiter at a cafe slowly getting more and more annoyed by his customers and staff, implying he might snap violently. Then a bomb goes off outside the cafe and the waiter gets caught by the blast.
- Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: A husband's plan to regain his wife's respect clashes against a serial bomber's ambitions, and things spiral from there.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title refers both to the town's idolization of Archer and Spencer's idolization of Gideon.
- Engineered Heroics: Allen's wife, Brenda, was previously married to Grant, his best friend, a war hero who was killed in Afghanistan, and whom she still loves and hero-worships long after his death. Feeling that he always lives in Grant's shadow in terms of Brenda's affection, Allen sets up the beanery bombing—intending for it to only be a very small incident with no casualties—so he can look like a hero by running into the building and rescuing the most sympathetic person he saw (which ended up being a pregnant woman), earning the same kind of hero-respect from Brenda. Unfortunately for him, this gets him in over his head with the UnSub.
- Eviler than Thou: The coffee shop bombing was the work of a jealous husband who wanted to gain his wife's admiration and never planned for anyone to get hurt. He's then targeted by the UnSub, a bomber who very much does want to cause death and destruction on a much larger scale.
- Foreshadowing: While in the car by himself, reading the latest news about the coffee house bombing on his tablet and learning that the death toll is up to seven people, Allen looks completely distraught, with tears in his eyes. It's later revealed that he planted the bomb himself, never intending for anyone to die, only for it to rupture a gas line and turn into a way bigger explosion than planned and making him an Accidental Murderer.
- Glad I Thought of It: When Rossi wonders how Hotch was able to convince the mayor to go along with their plan to catch the UnSub, Hotch explains that he agreed to let the mayor take full credit if the plan works.
- Glory Hound:
- The coffee shop bomber, Allen Archer, is a man who wants to prove himself a hero to his wife, and organizes the bombing to be the hero. He gets more than he bargained for, though, when doing so causes the UnSub (who is also this trope, but in a very different way) to target him.
- The real UnSub is this as well, explicitly stated to have a god complex and targeting Allen in retaliation for the latter's bombing stealing attention from his own.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Allen's incredibly misguided attempt to win Brenda's idolization via Engineered Heroics results in numerous civilian casualties, losing Brenda's love and respect forever when she finds out he was responsible, and him being targeted by the UnSub for stealing his thunder.
- Jack the Ripoff: After the UnSub bombed a mostly-empty school at night as a "testing ground", Allen heard about it on the news and was inspired to build a bomb of his own, which he planted in a coffee shop bathroom toilet, so he could be a hero. Since the UnSub has a god complex, he doesn't take it well that someone else stole attention from him and targets Allen accordingly.
- Love Triangle: In the past, Allen introduced his best friend Grant to Brenda, whom he had feelings for himself, only for the two of them to fall in love, get married, and have a daughter together while he could only watch in resentment. What's more, after Grant's death, Allen did hook up with Brenda himself, but still felt like he was competing with his dead friend for her love. His planting the bomb at the beanery was an attempt to look like a hero as well in his wife's eyes and earn admiration on the level she has for Grant, only for it to go horribly wrong; while it does work as intended at first in terms of getting Brenda to idolize him, she understandably wants nothing more to do with him once the BAU figures out he was responsible.
- The Mourning After: After Gideon's death in the previous episode, Reid spends this one still mourning him and trying to come to terms with it. Rossi, the team member who was closest to Gideon along with Reid, helps him work through it.
- No One Gets Left Behind: As Morgan prepares to try to disarm the bomb in Allen's car—knowing the explosion will kill him and anyone else nearby if he fails—he tries to encourage Reid to get far away so he won't risk getting killed too. Reid refuses to leave Morgan and stays with him.
- Smart People Play Chess: It's already been shown many times that Reid plays chess, and he used to do so often with Gideon. It's established here that Rossi also plays, and he and Reid do so on the plane ride home, symbolizing that the latter's moving forward in the healing process of Gideon's death.Reid: Do you know how to play chess?
Rossi: Who do you think Gideon played before he met you? - Spot the Thread: Unlike Allen's response to the beanery bombing, where he was shaken but fairly level-headed and composed while helping people, he's completely panicked and freaking out when he's almost killed by the bomb in his car. After the team figures out that Allen caused the coffee shop incident, this is how they realize that he wasn't responsible for the car bomb and the real UnSub who bombed the school is someone else.
- Reid: "Ture heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." Arthur Ashe.
