Through The Looking-Glass
Directed by Dermott Downs
Written by Sharon Lee Watson
An autistic boy’s family is locked in a basement, due to the UnSub wanting to show them how flawed they are behind their façade.Written by Sharon Lee Watson
Jareau: The German author Goethe wrote, "Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their true image."
Tropes in this episode:
- Broken Pedestal: Part of the UnSub's psychosis revolves around the illusion of a perfect family, only to be disappointed by the issues that plague them beneath the veneer. When the father, John, tries pointing out that every family has problems, the UnSub goes into a rant about how families are supposed to be "happy" and "love each other", making it clear he holds the families he wants to live vicariously through to such an impossible standard, he won't accept anything less than perfect.
- Dysfunctional Family: The two families the UnSub kidnapped. The father John slept with his son Braden's tutor, the daughter Mackenzie is a drug addict who resents her mother for being overbearing, and the mother Debra is heavily obsessed with appearances and has a spending addiction so bad that she's willing to take out loans from a loan shark and condemn Mackenzie's boyfriend to death in exchange for money.
- Heroic Suicide: The UnSub dares the family to perform a Murder-Suicide in exchange for their son’s life. The mother is the only who attempts to shoot herself, thinking it’s her fault her family is in danger.
- Holier Than Thou: The UnSub was raised in a strict Russian Orthodox family, and feels the need to judge people for their perceived sins. Trying to shame them for their sexual preferences, their addictions, or their materialism. He feels no shame for being a stalker, a voyeur, a serial killer, and a sadist.
- Hollywood Blanks: Debra shoots herself in the chest but is completely unharmed because the gun was loaded with blanks.
- Long-Distance Relationship: Hotch's girlfriend Beth gets a job offer in New York. He urges her to take it, and they decide to give a long distance relationship a try.
- Never My Fault: To contrast with her husband and daughter, Debra is quicker to blame others for her own issues. When Mackenzie reveals she stole Debra's painkillers two years before her parents thought she started taking drugs, Debra is quick to try and blame John for Mackenzie's drug addiction, only for Mackenzie to call her out and explain she took them out of resentment for her mother, with Debra instead trying to blame Mackenzie for making it harder to hide everything, and then trying to blame it on Mackenzie's boyfriend Darren getting her addicted despite Mackenzie just explaining to her how that wasn't true, which she uses to justify, allegedly, killing Darren for the money.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: Played with. The father sleeping with the tutor is the initial reason the UnSub targets that family. On the other hand, it's far from the only reason, it's just the one that gets his attention, and even if he hadn't, the UnSub would simply have targeted another family.
- Rule of Three: Played With. Braden gets three guesses as to why the UnSub kidnapped his family, but is smart enough to realize that "if you get it wrong I'll kill them" means he can only guess twice.
- Shout-Out: The title is a reference to the book by Lewis Carroll.
- Suicide Dare: The UnSub’s final test for the family to shoot themselves to save the son. Subverted as the handgun provided is loaded with blanks, meaning it was to test if they were willing to die for their loved ones.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The mother, Debra, is the most susceptible to the UnSub's mindgames, and as a result is the most quickly to turn on her husband John and daughter Mackenzie, despite how much the latter two try to remind her they are all in this situation and should be focused on Braden.
- Hotchner: "One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others." Lewis Carroll.
