Recap / Criminal Minds S 7 E 5 From Childhoods Hour

From Childhood's Hour

An emergency operator is traumatized that he "helped" his mother kill herself as a child, and now kidnaps children who call in an issue with their parents. His rule is that he will only murder a parent with the child's "permission".

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Tropes

• All Women Love Shoes: After looking in a woman's closet, Morgan comments that she was definitely depressed as she only had four pairs of shoes. Reid doesn't get it. At the end of the episode, he's talking about this with JJ, Prentiss, and Garcia as they explain that even 10 pairs isn't enough. Which reminds Prentiss that she needs new boots.
• Blatant Lies: A heroic example. During the climax, the UnSub has a mother and her teenage daughter at gunpoint and demands that the latter tell him to kill her "abusive" mother or he'll kill her. Grasping this, her mother starts accusing her of wanting her stepfather to rape her and claims to have told him "he could have her" in an attempt to get her daughter to tell the UnSub to kill her. Thankfully, the BAU arrive before he can pull the trigger, and the mother and daughter quickly confirm that they understood and reconcile.
• Driven to Suicide: The UnSub thinks his mother was this trope, but it is revealed that she was probably just sitting peacefully on a bridge, and her ten-year-old son pushed her off.
• Imagine Spot: The UnSub remembers his mother in a long flowing white dress falling into the river. When we get the real story, it turns out that she was wearing a regular cream dress and landed on pavement.
• I Want My Mommy!: The second kidnap victim won't stop yelling this.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By abducting his last victims immediately after he answered the call from their house, the UnSub managers to improve the relationship between the mother and daughter. The situation reminds her mother that her child is more important than a (presumably abusive and pedophilic) boyfriend. For her daughter, it shows her that despite the argument with her mother, the latter is willing to give up her own life if it guarantees her safety. The moment the UnSub is captured, the two immediately reconcile, with the mother confessing she was just using Blatant Lies to keep his rage focused on her and the daughter reassures her that she knew she was lying to protect her.
• Not Helping Your Case: After Timmy is brought home after his drug-addicted mother loses him in the park, the boy’s father decides he needs to drown his sorrows to cope with all this. It’s never revealed what will become of the Timmy after this case, but it’s likely that he might be taken into child services.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The UnSub decides to force his last victims, a single mother and her teenage daughter to come to his home at gunpoint for various reasons. The first is that he can get both to comply with his orders without the risk of either of them trying to fight back, especially since he is just a man of average build.
  • The second is that he knows a teenage girl is unlikely to go with a stranger willingly and, being older than the sons of his previous victims, would likely disapprove of him trying to kill her mother despite their issues. So, he brings up his own background to try and convince her that giving her a Mercy Kill is the best course of action.
  • For the girl’s mother, he decides to keep her tied up in his home so that when he finally does have her daughter’s approval, he won’t have to waste time trying to hunt her down.
• Self-Harm: The first victim cuts her wrists with scissors.
• Self-Serving Memory: The UnSub has spent years telling himself that his mother 'abandoned' him by killing herself, even dressing it up as a gentle, graceful event to try and milk sympathy even though he visibly hates her for it. Thing is, it's a lie. He actually killed his mother by shoving her off a bridge, and there was nothing beautiful about it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The UnSub is fully aware that a thirteen-year-old girl won't just willingly go with a complete stranger simply because he’s the 911 operator that answered her call. As such, his backup plan is to have her and her mother come to his house at gunpoint.
• Wham Line: Carolyn ends the episode by revealing her sickness and asking Rossi to help her kill herself.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Because of his mother battling with depression and self-harm, Bobby is more mature than a nine-year-old boy should. He knows when his mother is attempting self-harm or suicide and he figures out rather quickly that his mother was killed by the UnSub.

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Rossi: "All things truly wicked start from an innocence." Ernest Hemingway.