Children of the Dark
Directed by Guy Norman Bee
Written by Jay Beattie & Dan Dworkin
A pair of UnSubs stalk families and invade their homes where they murder them. One is your run-of-the-mill sadistic psychopath and kills, but the other they profile as killing the children out of compassion — or "putting them down", which is what he does to abandonned pets at work in a veterinary clinic.Written by Jay Beattie & Dan Dworkin
Prentiss: "In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it's intimate and psychological, resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul." Barbara Erenreich
Tropes present in this episode:
- Adults Are Useless: Despite Ervin's rather graphic description of the abuse he and Gary suffered in the foster home and two federal agents witnessing the signs of abuse going on in the home, CPS can't be bothered to actually do anything until a full investigation is carried out. The BAU isn't a lot better, putting up only token resistance before taking the kids back to the abusive foster home and basically wishing them good luck. It's little wonder that Gary was so certain that one of the foster kids would turn out just like him, he clearly understood what was going to happen.
- The Atoner:
- One of the last interactions between Carrie and her family was arguing about how she wanted to spend her life. She spends the episode cooperating with anything the BAU asks of her because she wants to prove that she can be a good daughter.
- Ervin himself is extremely apologetic about his involvement in the murders.
- Bait-and-Switch: Carrie seems like she might have been under attack by the killers in the hospital and screams, causing JJ and Prentiss to run towards her... only for it to be revealed to be All Just a Dream.
- Batman Gambit: Subverted. Gary gives the boy he holds hostage a gun and lets him go, figuring he'll want to kill the foster mother as much as any kid who lives there. And he's right, but in the end, that kid is not a killer.
- Captain Obvious: As Reid says, guns don't just walk away on their own.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Ervin apologizes to Carrie, not for killing her brother, but for not killing her. He claims this was selfish of him, and he couldn't kill her properly because she reminds him of his sister, Lucy.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Averted as far as Garcia is concerned. The UnSubs kill cats as well as humans.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:Morgan: The backpacks? No. Why would we check the backpacks?" (Shots ring out)
- Freudian Excuse: Mrs. Manwaring, one of the foster caretakers of both Gary and Ervin in their youth, abused them while her husband ignored it.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Gary surrenders himself to the police after letting the boy he holds hostage go — with his gun in his backpack.
- Mercy Kill: The UnSub who "euthanizes" the children while the other offs the parents thinks they're better off dead than as orphans.
- Orphanage of Fear: The foster home that the UnSubs were in when they were young, causing at least Ervin to think all of them are like this.
- Destroy the Abusive Home: Gary attempts this in the climax.
- Replacement Goldfish: Carrie becomes one for Ervin whose sister she resembles. He calls her Lucy, affectionately strokes her hair when trying to reassure her that his actions are for her own good, and leaves her floral arrangements he bought with a stolen credit card. He also takes a picture of her as a kid and he expresses genuine enthusiasm when she arrives in the interrogation room to get him to tell the team where Gary is.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: The UnSubs are only brothers because they ended up in the same foster home as children, but they are as opposite as two murderers can be.
- Sole Survivor: Carrie is the only survivor of the attack on the Ortiz family due to Ervin messing up the lethal injection on her. She suffers from Survivor Guilt as a result.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Towards the end of the episode, Morgan promises a young boy that he won't have to stay in the abusive foster home, that he'll be able to walk out right then and never have to go back. Exactly how Morgan accomplished this or even if he did is not explained or shown.
- Water Torture: How the UnSubs' foster mother disciplined and still disciplines kids.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The killers are two young men who talk their way into a family home before sadistically and psychologically torturing them, and at one point, they used golf clubs.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Subverted. Gary once Ervin isn't around holds a boy hostage and threatens to kill him, but eventually lets him go and surrenders willingly.
- Otherwise, the two don't go out of their way to avoid hurting the children in the families, with Ervin euthanizing them instead.
- You're Insane!: Carrie says this to Ervin regarding his belief on his forced euthanization of the children being akin to a Mercy Kill.
