Unfinished Business
Directed by J Miller Tobin
Written by Debra J Fisher, Erica Messer, & Andrew Wilder
Written by Debra J Fisher, Erica Messer, & Andrew Wilder
Gideon: Norman Maclean wrote, "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us."
A serial killer who "retired" years ago reads a true crime book about himself and feels compelled to finish what he started. He goes back through the victims he failed to kill back then for whatever reason, confusing the investigators by changing his MO just enough to seem like he might be a copycat.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: After Ryan describes his prank on Gideon interrupting a meeting between the FBI Director and the Attorney General, Ryan says the Director was the only one who didn't find it funny, which means that the Attorney General did find it funny.
- Cooldown Hug: Gideon administers one to the UnSub's last attempted victim after they rescue her in the nick of time.
- Creature of Habit: Due to years of bad cop shop coffee, Max Ryan now has to take his coffee bad to properly enjoy it.
- Cut Apart: There are exterior shots of the FBI preparing to enter the UnSub's home, interspersed with POV shots of someone coming to the door. Once the door opens, it turns out that the interior being shown belongs not to the UnSub, but his next victim, coming to let him in.
- Determinator: The UnSub paused his murder spree because he was in a severe car crash and was injured too badly to submit people physically anymore to strangle them. Twenty years later, he decided to finish the list he made, changing his MO to pointing a gun to his victim's face and giving them the choice of being suffocated or shot (the intricate knot he used to tie his victims that is his signature now he does post-mortem).
- Disability Alibi: Inverted. As the investigation goes on, the BAU becomes increasingly sure that the only reason the Keystone Killer paused his spree was because he was physically unable to continue and the different MO they assumed was a copycat at first is him having to change his methods to compensate for his physical disability.
- Foreshadowing: Elle and Hotch talk about the loneliness of working for the BAU, and Hotch mentions that divorce isn't uncommon among agents. Ouch.
- I Just Want to Be Special: The UnSub has a pathological need for attention that leads him to start killing again, and eventually to surrender with the promise that he'll be famous.
- Jack the Ripoff: Subverted. The BAU begin their investigation thinking that it's a copycat of the Keystone Killer, but eventually figure out that it's the actual Keystone Killer back after 20 years.
- The Mentor: Gideon's mentor at the BAU, Max Ryan, is introduced.
- My Greatest Failure: What Ryan considers his inability to catch the keystone killer to be. Which leads to...
- My Greatest Second Chance: His ability to reopen the case with the help of the BAU team. Especially since this time, they succeed.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Based on the Dennis Rader case.
- That One Case: For Max Ryan. He could not catch the killer before his retirement.
- They Look Like Everyone Else: Walter Kern, the Keystone Killer, looks like a balding, bespectacled accountant (and he did various white-collar jobs throughout his life, including the original murder spree). Twenty years of laying low means he actually befriended a few of his victims… much to their peril.
Greenaway: Abraham Lincoln once said, "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
