Recap / Criminal Minds S 3 E 5 Seven Seconds

Seven Seconds

When a six-year-old girl goes missing during a family trip to the mall, the BAU's investigation reveals the perpetrator may be close to home.

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Tropes present in this episode:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: The whole episode is this to a certain extent, featuring much less of the standard racing around the city and guns-out standoffs the series usually utilizes in favor of focusing on emotional reactions to a traumatic situation and the slow-building tension of a search going on too long.
• All for Nothing: Susan did what she did not only to protect her husband Richard, whom she loved very much, but because she believed she would be able to get her family back together again. As Prentiss pointed out, it was never going to work due to Richard's sick desires. In the end, all Susan did was expose her and Richard's true natures, therefore tearing her family apart forever, whilst securing herself a lengthy prison sentence.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The unsubs. Richard and Susan pretend that they are still happily married and there is nothing wrong with their ideal suburban lives. As the episode progresses, their lies are exposed, along with their heinous crimes—Richard is a closet pedophile molesting his niece, Katie, and Susan is so determined to keep their family together that she's willing to remove Katie from the picture permanently. Fortunately, Jeremy appears to be nothing like them and the B.A.U. intends to make sure that he is alright following his parents' arrests.
• Bittersweet Ending: Katie is found and saved, but she's going to need hospitalization to recover from hours-long suffocation and trauma, not to mention therapy for the sexual abuse she was suffering. Meanwhile, Jeremy's parents are arrested for molesting and attempting to murder Katie respectively, meaning he's pretty much an orphan. The B.A.U. promises to make sure he's okay since he was an innocent party. Plus, Jessica Davis' killer is still out there with no on-screen conclusion for her case.
• Blaming the Victim: Rather than divorce Richard or turn him over to the police for sexually abusing their niece, Susan tried to save her sham of a marriage by killing Katie.
• Bound and Gagged: Katie was left to die this way in the mall's basement since she has asthma and couldn't breathe properly due to the tight space and her restricted airways.
• Break Them by Talking:
  • How Prentiss finally gets Susan to crack. When the Evil Aunt continues to play innocent, Prentiss chews her out with a well-deserved "Reason You Suck" Speech. Holding Katie's mutilated doll in front of Susan's face, Prentiss then spells out just how badly she has failed Katie. Not only did she unjustly blame a poor, innocent girl for her husband's actions, but she also continued to love that "animal" who never really loved her in return. As Susan desperately tries to hold on to her beliefs that it can all be overcome, Prentiss spells it out to her that no, it is over: Everyone knows what Richard is now and he will be going away for a very long time, as will Susan. The only thing she can do now to show she has even a shred of decency left is to help them save Katie. Susan doesn't and just keeps yelling "No!" as she breaks down.
  • Hotch also does this to Richard. After discovering what he is and what he did to Katie, Hotch spells out how disgusting he is to hurt his own niece like that. As he still believes that Richard may have tried to get rid of Katie in order to keep her quiet, Hotch starts asking what happened, ignoring Richard shouting denials in his face. It works when Hotch asks if Katie got "too old" for him and Richard automatically responds in the negative, thus revealing his guilt. Caught, Richard confesses to his crime, although Hotch confirms that he's not the kidnapper.
• Cerebus Syndrome: This episode has noticeably less comedy, even from Garcia who usually provides levity with some snarkiness. She still has a couple of lines that are comical, but the episode itself is far darker and more serious given the Missing Child subject.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: While the "bring back to life" bit is played fairly straight, Katie is shown afterwards on oxygen and in fairly rough shape while being loaded into an ambulance.
• Death Glare: Paul Jacobs, Katie's father, gives one to his brother at the end of the episode as Richard is put into the back of a police car. By now, Richard's abuse of Katie has been revealed and Paul's expression makes it clear that if given the opportunity, he would kill his brother on the spot.
• Devil in Plain Sight: The B.A.U. starts off the episode thinking that Katie was kidnapped by a stranger potentially responsible for the death of another girl the same age at the mall. It turns out that the real villains were in front of them all along, in the victim's own family. JJ even lampshades this at the end of the episode, when she tells Garcia that she will be haunted by the image of Susan comforting Katie's mother for some time. Garcia points out they should be thankful that's all they're going to be haunted by.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Said word for word by Prentiss, as she is interrogating Susan.
  Emily: Did you actually believe, that getting rid of that little girl, would take away his sickness?
• Doesn't Know Their Own Child: How Hotch and Prentiss catch Richard. He can tell them absolutely everything there is to know about his niece's interests and hobbies, but can't recall even the most basic information about the one child that should truly matter to him: his own son.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While he confesses to molesting Katie, her uncle asserts that he would never try to kill her, and the B.A.U. believes him.
• "Eureka!" Moment: There are four in the episode:
  • Katie's necklace found ripped off and thrown in the trash makes Hotch realize the perpetrator had a personal vendetta against her not motivated by lust, meaning Katie's disappearance isn't related to Jessica Davis's case.
  • When Morgan finds Katie's mutilated doll, combined with her wetting the bed and accounts of her acting withdrawn lately, he immediately deduces that she is being sexually abused by someone close to her.
  • Whilst questioning Richard, Prentiss wonders why he knows so much about Katie, but nothing about Jeremy. Hotch points out it makes sense when looked at from the mindset of a predator, who focuses entirely on their victims at the expense of their own families.
  • Prentiss gets the final one, when she notices that Richard hasn't smoked a single cigarette. After Richard tells her he gave it up about a month ago, Emily remembers something that Susan told her earlier: she wanted to buy a new lighter for her husband. This causes her to realize that Susan and Richard are no longer together and thus figure out who really took Katie.
    • Added to the above, Prentiss also remembers that Susan used to work at the mall and thus would know its layout, including which areas are covered by security cameras and how to avoid them.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Not as short of a time span as the title of the episode, but the entire episode plays out in real-time, more or less.
• Good Parents: Zigzagged. Katie's parents, while suspicious of her odd behavior, had no idea that her uncle was preying on her, but it's clear they're loving and protective. When they see both Richard and Susan being taken in for questioning, they implicitly disown their in-laws, realizing what the BAU is suspecting. They are right at Katie's side when the paramedics wheel her to an ambulance, holding her hand the entire time.
• Know When to Fold Them: Susan breaks down crying under interrogation, but still doesn't divulge where Katie is. Fortunately, Hotch and Morgan find her at that precise moment. With her victim safe and her crimes exposed, Susan quietly stands up and surrenders without a fight.
  • Also happens to Richard. Hotch is able to trick him into a confession and with the cat now out of the bag, he tells them everything he knows. Like his wife, he offers no resistance as they were taken into custody.
• Long Last Look: Just before she gets into the police car, Susan exchanges a final look with her son. The audience knows that this is probably the last time they will ever see each other; Jeremy is likely going into foster care (unless Katie's parents agree to take him in or he has any other relatives), whilst Susan will spend a very long time in prison. Even if she is lucky enough to get out, by that time, Jeremy will be a grown man and more than likely want nothing to do with her.
  • Averted with Richard, who never gets to say goodbye to his son. This may have been intentional on the police's part.
• Mama Bear: Katie's mother, Beth Jacobs, is distraught when her daughter goes missing. When Richard and Susan both come under suspicion, she starts angrily screaming at them, demanding to know what they did to Katie, and has to be held back by JJ. After Katie is found, Beth and her husband are right by her side as she is taken to the hospital.
• Misplaced Retribution: Susan tried to kill Katie because she blamed her for her husband being a pedophile. Prentiss calls her out for this, saying her husband is an animal and not worth "saving".
• Mood Whiplash: At the end of the ordeal, the police chief points out that unfortunately, Jessica Davis' killer is still out there.
• Not So Stoic: Prentiss, normally unflappable (to the point where other characters routinely point this out), is clearly seething with barely contained rage when grilling Susan about her husband's pedophilia and Katie's abduction.
• Now You Tell Me: Jeremy remembers that the last thing Katie said before she disappeared was his mother's name. Of course, he realizes this right after she's found and resuscitated. The B.A.U. goes easy on him, telling Jeremy that subconsciously, he didn't want to think his mother was a killer.
• Off the Wagon: Implied with cigarettes rather than alcohol. Richard tells Prentiss that he stopped smoking about a month before the events of the episode. Blink and you'll miss it, but as Katie's necklace is bagged as evidence, on the table behind it, there is a small cardboard box holding two stamped-out cigarettes in front of Richard. This suggests that the knowledge of what is going to happen to him caused him to relapse.
• Papa Wolf: Like his wife, Paul is genuinely worried about his daughter and horrified that he could not help her. He looks ready to rip his brother and sister-in-law apart when he sees them being taken in for questioning, fearing the worst. He only leaves Katie's side momentarily in order to watch his brother get arrested. The one thing that stops him from attempting to throttle his vile brother then and there is the knowledge that Katie needs him.
• Parental Neglect: Richard has been neglecting Jeremy because he is incapable of that kind of empathy toward children. This is highlighted by the fact that whilst Jeremy at least gets to see his mother off, he exchanges no farewell with his father.
• Parting-Words Regret: Jeremy recalls that he was playing games and flirting with a girl in the arcade while Katie was begging for him to stop, wanting to leave and get ice cream. He obviously regrets that he didn't protect her.
• Rewatch Bonus: Both Katie's aunt and uncle's behavior when the police initially question Jeremy takes on a new meaning once their crimes are revealed.
  • Susan gently encourages her son to talk and is on the verge of tears, wishing this didn't happen. She is putting on a facade for the cops and acting how one would expect a distressed aunt to, while knowing Jeremy can't identify her as Katie's kidnapper.
  • Richard rather coldly blames Jeremy for losing Katie and dismisses his feelings. He's not an uncle worried for his niece's safety, but a pedophile frustrated that he potentially lost access to the object of his fixation due to the carelessness of his son, whom he's been neglecting in favor of Katie.
• Too Smart for Strangers: Subverted; it turns out that Katie didn't go with a stranger. She instead went with her aunt, whom she trusted.

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Hotchner: G.K. Chesterton wrote, "Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed."