The Anti-Terror Squad
A victim of school bullying deals out revenge by killing his bullies' families.
Tropes in this episode
- Alpha Bitch: Amanda Bergstrom.
- Asshole Victim: Austin Settergren, who remorselessly bullied the UnSub into psychopathy. He ends up getting shot 6 times and then bludgeoned with one of his own sports trophies by the UnSub.
- Blatant Lies: Played straight and subverted with Luke. Garcia sees through the lie that he likes her gifts for Roxy, but not the saving one where he claims it's just that he can't feed biscuits to his raw-diet dog, but that he loves the pink dog sweater. She picks up on it after a while and gives him a collar instead.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Matt Doherty wetted his pants when the UnSub broke into his house and killed his family.
- Bully Hunter: The UnSub turns out to be a bullied teenager taking out his bullies' families.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The teens were bullies, sure, but they certainly didn't deserve to have their entire families killed.
- Functional Addict: Amanda's father got addicted to painkillers after he broke his leg.
- Jerk Jock: Austin Settergren, one of UnSub's bullies, plays sports.
- Manipulative Bastard: Amanda blackmailed her mother's boyfriend and threatened to tell her father about the affair. In truth, she wasn't going to.
- Revenge by Proxy; The UnSub's modus operandi for the first two victims is to kill their families and leave them to live with the trauma. Subverted with the third.
- School Bullying Is Harmless: The school authorities believed this, and so they did nothing to help the bullied kids of the Anti-Terror Squad. Furthermore, when the school's counselor (who was on their side) tried to do something to help, they destroyed his career.
- Suicide by Cop: Kyle tries this. Emily talks him out of it.
- Teens Are Monsters: Especially the UnSub, and to a lesser extent his bullies.
- Title Drop: One of the bullied teens who created the titular Bully Hunter group explains to the BAU that they called it the "Anti-Terror Squad" because the constant bullying felt like being under a terrorist regime. When the BAU gets their hands on records of the bullying from the school's counselor, they agree that it fits.
