Roadkill
Directed by Steve Boyum
Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
A drunk driver in a red coupe ran another car off Route 7 and drove away. The driver survived and suffered some memory loss, but his wife died, and he lost the use of his legs. Once he recuperates enough to drive, he starts dealing with his repressed trauma by hitting drivers of red coups with his own car and driving away.Written by Dan Dworkin & Jay Beattie
Hotchner: "I'm not sure about automobiles. With all their speed forward they may be a step backward in civilization." Booth Tarkington.
This episode provides examples of:
- Black Dude Dies First: Inverted. The UnSub’s fourth and final target is a black man — and the only one who survives, thanks to the BAU’s intervention.
- Car Fu: The UnSub's modus operandi for the episode. Hotch also exercises some of the car-to-car variant towards the end.
- Disability Alibi: Inverted. After the UnSub's rampage in a parking lot, the BAU wonders why the killer did not tried to get out of the car and catch up to the attempted victim on foot at any point, when the victim ducked between cars to run away. This quickly leads to them figuring out that it's because the killer is physically disabled and needs the truck both as a weapon and to move around.
- Driven to Suicide: Quite literally done by the UnSub when he remembers the circumstances regarding the car accident that crippled him and killed his wife, driving off a cliff as a result.
- Elevator Escape: Subverted when the first male victim narrowly misses this. The elevator shuts in his face and he is then crushed between it and the UnSub's car, nearly bisecting him.
- Handicapped Badass: The UnSub is mentioned to have been a soldier before the car crash that killed his wife and drove him crazy with grief made him a pareplegic. This is also played realistically in that he needs his car to be a threat.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Garcia lets it slip that she hacked into the NSA to her boyfriend during the epilogue:Garcia: I mean... with your delicate stomach, you wouldn't have been able to stand the food in Karachi.Kevin: I never told you it was in Karachi.Garcia: *Beat* Didn't you?
- Misplaced Retribution: The UnSub's killing spree is aimed at people he sees driving red coupes, because he blames a red coupe for the crash that crippled him and killed his wife. It turns out that the trauma made him forget that the red coupe was his own car, and the crash was caused by his own lack of attention to the road.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: As part of his attempted post-crash therapy, the UnSub tried to do art therapy. The BAU discovers that his sketchbook is full of drawings of the "red car" that the man blames for the crash and a whole lot of deranged drawings of pick-up trucks full of spikes, flames and chainsaws.
- Poor Communication Kills: Hotch explained everything about the UnSub's situation to their local police contact... everything except "don't try to confront him with what really happened, it will just agitate him further"; he waits until the officer is in the middle of doing just that to try and explain it to him (over a lot of engine noise and Hotch being stuck inside a car). Luckily the UnSub's reaction is that he's Driven to Suicide instead of trying to kill more people. Still, while he clearly doesn't think it's the optimal outcome, Hotch apparently agrees with the officer that it's not worth losing sleep over.
- Together in Death: The UnSub hallucinates his deceased wife holding his hand after he drives off a cliff.
- Tragic Villain: The UnSub's vendetta started because he knew that the car accident that made him a quadriplegic and killed his wife was caused by a red coupe. He's right, because it was a one-car accident and that was what they were in.
- Weaponized Car: The UnSub's weapon is a mild version (only a pick-up truck with a reinforced bumper), but his sketchbook is full of more deranged examples, mostly involving lots of spikes and even chainsaws. The car is necessary because the man is paraplegic.
- Jareau: "The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience." Mahatma Gandhi.
