Profiler, Profiles
Written by Edward Allen Bernero & Andrew Wilder
Morgan visits his family in Chicago, and a boy he drove home turns up dead. A cop, Gordinsky, decides this means Morgan did it, feeling he can do profiling better than the BAU, who try to explain to him that profiling is more for ruling suspects out. Gordinsky has had it in for Morgan since he was a kid living in the area, even before he found a corpse in a vacant lot. Hotch and Gideon discover that Morgan has a juvenile record he hasn't disclosed.
Morgan's mother and sisters tell Reid and Prentiss about Morgan spending a lot of time at the youth center after his father died when he was ten. They also talk about Carl Buford, the owner of the center and the person whose letter got Morgan's juvenile record expunged. The team figures out that Buford must have sexually abused Morgan as a boy at the same time Morgan figures out that Buford has a new victim and goes to confront him.
This episode provides examples of:
- The Baby of the Bunch: Morgan is the youngest (And only) boy in his family. His sisters lightly tease him.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted since Morgan's the little brother, but he is quick to stand up for his sister Desiree and get protective of her when Rodney is verbally harassing her.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Morgan was visiting his mother for her birthday when he was arrested.
- Confirmation Bias: In-universe, Gordinsky decides Morgan must be guilty, then looks at all the evidence like he is. Gideon and Morgan point it out.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Morgan saw his father get killed when he was ten, somewhat joined a gang a year later, got in a fight that earned him a criminal record, and when he was fifteen he found a body. It gets worse when the man who became a father figure to him, Carl Buford, was revealed to be a pedophile who molested him.
- Friend to All Children: The cop finds it suspicious that Morgan hangs out with kids every time he's in town.
- Lethal Chef: Morgan once tried to cook. He caused a fiasco in 1994, so his sisters now don't want him helping to bake their mother's birthday cake.
- Mistaken for Racist: Gordinski has been hounding Morgan since the latter was a teen. Morgan assumes that the detective's beef with him is motivated by racism, but Gordinski's outrage at murdered black teens and his admiration of Carl Buford prior to The Reveal tell a different story. It's implied but not outright stated that Buford had been manipulating Gordinski for years, pointing him at fatherless teens as "troublemakers" so they'd feel driven to someone in the community who could protect them and that they'd feel they couldn't go to local authorities when Buford preyed on them.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode goes from the delightfully funny "physics magic" segment to Morgan brooding in a graveyard within seconds of each other.
- Writers Cannot Do Math: When they talk about Morgan finding the corpse in 1991 they say he was fifteen at the time, suggesting he was born in 1975 or 1976. However, Morgan's file states that he's 33, in which case he'd have to be born in 1973 or 1974.
