The Pact
Directed by Karen Gaviola
Written by Janine Sherman Barrois
Two women exact revenge on the killers of their family members who got off scot-free, preparing themselves to track down the man who raped and murdered the daughter of one of them.Written by Janine Sherman Barrois
Rossi: Ralph Steadman wrote, "Evil is always devising more corrosive misery through man's restless need to exact revenge out of his hate."
Tropes in this episode
- Accomplice by Inaction: One of the victims, Paul Montgomery, claims he didn't actually do anything to Darlene's daughter Kelly and instead just watched, and that doing so has eaten him up for years. It doesn't stop Ellen from convincing Darlene to kill him, and it's left ambiguous if he was telling the truth or just lying to try and save himself.
- Advice Backfire: While relaxing on the beach after escaping the country and reflecting on their crimes, Ellen dismissively tells Darlene that she needs to look out for herself. Moments later, when Darlene spots law enforcement looking for them, she runs to save herself without letting Ellen know.
- Ambiguous Innocence:
- While it's obvious that Jason was an Asshole Victim, it's unclear whether or not the same could be said for Mark and Paul. Jason admits all three of them were high when they kidnapped Kelly, Jason did force Mark to take the fall, both Mark and Paul seemingly tried turning their lives around for the better in the aftermath, and Paul claimed he just stood there and watched when Kelly's rape happened, but it's unclear how genuine any of it is. Jason already demonstrated a propensity for playing mind games for sadistic pleasure, so he could have said what he did to torment Darlene and Ellen by making them think they killed two innocent men, and he too looked to have turned his life around in the public eye but was found to be a closet psychopath by the BAU upon looking deeper, so who is to say the same wasn't the case for Paul and Mark. In addition, Paul said what he said as Darlene and Ellen were about to kill him, making it possible he only did so to try and save his life.
- Jason, Paul, and Mark had a fourth friend around the time of Kelly's disappearance, the Token Black Friend Bryce. It's never stated whether or not he was involved in Kelly's kidnapping, rape and murder, and the only reason he is spared Darlene and Ellen's Roaring Rampage of Revenge is because he's living in Amsterdam at the time.
- Asshole Victim: Jason is an utterly sick piece of work who raped and killed a little girl, and when confronted by her murderously pissed off Mama Bear, decides to get more kicks out of dragging her around to unbury her daughter's skull (and see her expression when he reveals that he cut the cadaver up to bury pieces in other spots) and even declines to do this unless she murders someone. The BAU notably doesn't show any care about Jason beyond him being one more dead guy in Darlene and Ellen's spree.
- Bait-and-Switch: The team implies Ellen, who shows sign of being a sociopath, may be turned against Darlene by their last victim, who is himself a psychopath. This never happens. Ellen even covers for Darleen when Rossi finds her in Mexico, allowing Darleen to escape.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Invoked by Jason, as he convinces Darlene and Ellen to spare him by claiming he can take them to Kelly's body. He quickly after proceeds to manipulate them for his own sick amusement, thinking neither of them will kill him so long as he has that knowledge. After he digs up Kelly's skull, he tries to pull this again by claiming he dismembered her body and buried her all over the place, but fails to consider how enraged Darlene was, and she proceeds to quickly beat him to death with a shovel.
- Extreme Doormat: Ellen thinks Darlene is this, but despite being a bit of a sociopath herself, she doesn't take advantage of her beyond enlisting her for their Roaring Rampage of Revenge. It helps that one of her motivations is trying to get Darlene to stop being this and giving her a reason to live.
- Fauxshadowing: The BAU theorizes that the more antisocial member of the vigilante twosome (Ellen) will devolve and maybe become subservient to a more vile person if she can find one, which happens just as they encounter Jason. He spends a few minutes getting his kicks, but the potential "Jason will prove to be Eviler than Thou and become the true Big Bad of the episode" plot gets shut down via Darlene killing him with a shovel.
- Graceful Loser: Ellen doesn't resist arrest when Rossi catches up to her, and despite Darlene being partially responsible for him finding her, she doesn't hold it against her and is relieved to see her escape.
- Karma Houdini: Darlene sees Ellen being arrested and boards a bus, making her one of only a handful of UnSubs on the show to successfully evade capture.
- Mama Bear: Darlene and Ellen's spree is fueled by their desire to get payback on the people who killed their loved ones, Darlene's daughter and Ellen's nephew & sister.note The episode then goes on to show that in the eyes of the BAU and the law, this is still a pretty flimsy excuse.
- Misplaced Retribution: Downplayed. Ellen's first victim, Mark, was killed for the crime of murdering Darlene's daughter Kelly and hiding her body. As she and Darlene learn however, Mark didn't actually kill her, rather he only aided in kidnapping her. His friend Jason was the one who raped and killed Kelly, with Mark taking the fall for the crime. While certainly a shitty thing to do, he wasn't the target they thought he was.
- Motive Decay: Downplayed. Ellen's motive was always getting revenge on those that took loved ones away from her and Darlene, but she only focused on killing the guilty and not compromising with them. While initially hesitant to entertain Jason however, she quickly shoots an innocent driver at his direction when Darlene refuses to after he claims he'll tell them where Darlene's daughter is buried if they kill someone. She still wants to kill Jason and get Darlene her revenge, but has shifted to seeking closure for Darlene closure. The driver luckily manages to survive the shot.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: As Ellen herself says, "An eye for an eye". She and Darlene kill individuals they consider to have escaped justice for killing their loved ones, and do so by dragging their still living bodies along the road by the chains connected to their trucks. While Darlene has reservations with the idea and eventually comes to believe Revenge Is Not Justice, Ellen maintains that they needed to punish their victims for what they did.
- Pet the Dog: The BAU profiles that the dominant member of the pair of UnSubs (Ellen) will ditch her partner (Darlene) if necessary to escape arrest. They turn out to be completely wrong about this, as Ellen does the exact opposite at the end. Rossi finds and approaches Ellen while Darlene was up getting drinks for the two of them, and she is not only a Graceful Loser, but she claims to him that Darlene is "long gone" rather than bringing her down with her. And as she's sitting in a police car, Ellen sees Darlene making her getaway on a departing bus, and gives her a genuinely happy smile, once again not ratting her out.
- Reformed Criminal: All of Darlene and Ellen's victims are people responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, and either escaped justice or faced sentences the two don't consider sufficient for the crime. Several of them are shown to have moved on with their lives, some even trying to change for the better, but Ellen believes there's no turning back for them, and they need to pay. Jason is the subversion, being a closet psychopath who killed several others after his initial victim (Kelly) and takes sadistic glee in tormenting Darlene and Ellen.
- Revenge Is Not Justice: A counterpoint to the UnSubs' Roaring Rampage of Revenge made by the BAU is that their actions are just getting people killed and not actually helping them deal with their problems. One of the UnSubs, Darlene, comes to share this mindset by the very end once she and Ellen are about to go their separate ways, outright asking Ellen what was even the point of their rampage if it both didn't give them closure but also ballooned out of control. Ellen in turn counters by saying the people they killed needed to pay for their actions, and that she was ultimately more concerned about giving Darlene a reason to live than she was about any personal closure, hence her being content when Rossi catches her, since Darlene ultimately managed to get away.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: What the UnSubs are doing, essentially.
- Sympathetic Murderer:
- One of the two UnSubs, Darlene, ends up being this. She was heartbroken when her daughter was kidnapped and murdered by a gang of teenage boys, and wasn't able to get proper closure because her body was never found. However, she's conflicted about the murders they commit from the beginning and is really only talked into it thanks to Ellen, and takes no pleasure at all from the violence they inflict on the victims. The only exception is Jason, who raped and murdered her daughter and spends half the episode rubbing it in her face until she snaps and beats him to death in a grief-fueled rage that is, quite frankly, extremely deserved. Once it's all over and they've fled the country, it's clear Darlene regrets what they've done and has come to the same conclusion as the BAU that the murders didn't really change anything, nor did it bring them closure. Tellingly, she's the one who gets away at the end, while Ellen does not.
- The episode makes a point of showing that the other UnSub, Ellen, is not this. While she, too, has the genuinely sympathetic backstory of her nephew (her sister's child) dying in a car accident caused by a drunk driver, the driver barely receiving any punishment for the crime, said sister being Driven to Suicide as a result, and Ellen wanting justice for it all, she nonetheless is shown to have some sociopathic tendencies, is quite violent and ruthless towards the victims, willing to kill a completely innocent person at the behest of a child molester (Jason) just to help Darlene get closure, and doesn't show remorse for anything she's done. That being said, she does get a Pet the Dog moment of allowing Darlene to escape at the end.
- "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: The UnSubs' initial plan. Things start going sideways for them when they learn one of their victims had accomplices. Reid name-drops the trope.
- Token Black Friend: Discussed. The last victim, Jason, will admit to raping and killing a black child, but he doesn't want the girl's mother to think he's racist – claiming his best friend is black to prove it. Then again, he might've been messing with his captors' heads.
- Toxic Friend Influence: While the BAU profiles Ellen as being the dominant one in their relationship and likely to discard Darlene if need be, they're only correct about the former. Darlene is a lot more hesitant in her and Ellen's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, not wanting to see her victims suffer and just wanting to get it over with. Ellen meanwhile is more focused on "helping" Darlene, trying to get her closure from Kelly's death and give her a reason to live, and in turn tries goading her into being more ruthless and violent towards their victims, culminating in Darlene beating Jason to death with a shovel in a violent rage. At the very end, Ellen outright admits as such to her, and is content with being arrested by Rossi since she knows Darlene managed to escape.
- Tragic Mistake: With the exception of Jason, who continued his crimes in the present, the crimes of each of Darlene and Ellen's victims boil down to them being stupid and making a massive mistake with longstanding consequences. Brenda was a drunk driver who got Ellen's nephew killed and managed to escape a larger sentence due to her rich family. Meanwhile, Mark and Paul were apparently only accomplices in Kelly's fate, as both were high and following Jason's lead, who then made Mark take the fall, and subsequently tried to turn their lives around out of regret. Ellen and Darlene, however, don't care about them changing, they only care they didn't pay like they should have in the first place.
- Rossi: Paul Brown once said, "If you win, say nothing. If you lose, say less."
