The Wheels on the Bus

A bus full of teenagers is kidnapped and forced to play a Battle Royale against each other inside an abandoned factory.

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Tropes in this episode

• Bait-and-Switch: Initially, Matthew is framed as the more volatile of the two brothers, having visible anger at losing and being crueler towards their captives, compared to Joshua's more even-voiced coercion and promises that his victims will get out of there if they listen. After the first round of their "game" though, it's made apparent that Joshua is the more volatile, being a horrible Sore Loser that will cheat to win, up to and including trying to kill Matthew's players himself, and even manipulate Matthew if it's to save his own ass, whereas Matthew, while emotionally unstable and quick to anger, actually cares about Joshua and directs his anger at his victims instead of his brother.
• Bittersweet Ending: The BAU manage to rescue most of the students, Wendy survives her gunshot wound, and the Moore Brothers are successfully stopped before their actions can claim any more lives. However, one of the students, Trent, along with the bus driver and supervisor, are all killed, Trent in particular by Addyson's hand, leaving her traumatized. And despite his behavior, Matthew does appear somewhat sorrowful about Joshua's death, having lost the only person he truly cared about.
• Condescending Compassion: Joshua uses his brotherly bond with Matthew to talk him down once Matthew accuses him of cheating, claiming it's only them against the world. The rest of their interactions make clear though how little Joshua actually respects his brother thanks to always beating him, and demonstrates that Joshua was only saying what he did to save his own ass.
• Dysfunction Junction: One of the Moore brothers is a sociopath, the other is a sociopath and a violently Sore Loser. Their parents' arguing certainly didn't help. Between that and the parents eventually divorcing, the Moore family was a generally dysfunctional family to a T.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: An especially twisted one. Matthew's relationship with Joshua is tenuous at times and, in a worst case scenario, borders on resentment. But when compared to everyone else he treats like a pawn to violently pit against each other, he did genuinely care about his brother, to the point he shows a bit of sadness at his untimely death as he's being arrested.
• Freudian Excuse: The Moore brothers' violent and competitive obsession with video games was born from their parents' bad marriage, coming to a head when they got divorced and split between the brothers. "Gods of Combat" was their only way of staying in touch.
• Lack of Empathy: The Moore brothers display a scarcity of empathy for their victims, using them as pawns and video game avatars rather than real people who would rather not kill each other.
• Rule of Symbolism: "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." If the ending quote is anything to go by, one can interpret it's referring to the difference between the victims and the Moore brothers, respectively. The students may have gone through a traumatizing experience, but their decent backgrounds and upbringings made sure they did not lose their moral compasses, even in their darkest hour. The Moore brothers on the other hand are so troubled and amoral that (especially for one of them) rehabilitation is least likely.
• The Sociopath: The Moore brothers are highly sociopathic, and show little care for anything outside their "game", and treating their captives as if they were "players". The two exhibit this though in different manners.
  • Joshua is able to somewhat fake empathy in order to get Addyson to comply with his instructions, but is largely apathetic to anything outside of the game, showing little patience for Addyson's horror at seeing her supervisor dead beforehand. He also demonstrates a degree of emotional manipulation, using Addyson's love for her family to convince her to kill Trent, and using his own bond with Matthew to calm him down when he accuses Joshua of cheating. And while he isn't as outwardly aggressive as Matthew, he has a horrible temper of his own, attempting to kill Wendy when Billy offers to take her place just because Matthew wasn't following "the rules", and tried rushing the law enforcement that came to rescue their victims for ruining their "game", getting himself killed in the process.
  • Matthew is a lot more outwardly aggressive, having no qualms with electrocuting his "player" to enforce compliance whenever they demonstrate hesitance, is more direct in his orders to his "player", and is quick to turn on Joshua when it looks like he sabotaged the "game" so he could win. He is somewhat better at taking a loss, as aside from his initial frustration, he's more focused on just getting to the next round so he can win, only lashing out at Joshua when it looked like Joshua was cheating. And while says he only cares that he won when he learns Joshua is dead, his final look towards Joshua's body all but says that's not the case.

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Rossi: Frederick Douglass said, "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."