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chreesko.livejournal.comHotch is my favorite, so it's entirely possible that this entire post is the result of too much time spent staring at Hotch while the other characters in the foreground do case-related things, but why let that stop me, right? So! One of the things I love about Hotch is that he can be really mean sometimes.
We've seen Hotch display a thread of ruthlessness, especially early on in the series. Riding the Lightning, for example, contains a lot of wonderful moments, but what I really love about this episode is the scene where he looks Jacob in the face and says, “You lose.” It's one of the first times we see Hotch's cutthroat side come out in quite that way. And again, in Psychodrama, when he loads the unsub into the ambulance and tells the EMT not to give him any drugs. There are multiple ways to interpret what he said, but there's a punishing undercurrent to his tone there. I'm sure there are other instances as well, but I can't get to my DVDs right now, so maybe y'all could chime in with other examples?
He's pulled out that attitude in the line of work, sure, either to protect the team or get information or see justice served -- I'll never believe, for example, that he's sorry for lying to the team or withholding information when he thought he had to -- but there are a few times we see him do it when it's designed solely to hurt. There's absolutely nothing to be gained by letting Jacob know his son is alive beyond taking away his sense of victory right before he is executed. Maybe that's its own reward, but it's interesting that Gideon's focus (right or wrong) is on Sarah, and Hotch's is on Jacob. (For those that see the team as a family, specifically the Hotch-as-dad and Gideon-as-mom version, maybe a subtle nod to the mom-dad dynamics? Dad deals with the dad and Mom deals with the mom? Or for the reverse, Mom deals with dad and Dad deals with mom?)
What do you think, cxm? Is Hotch the most ruthless person on the team? One of the most ruthless? I think the obvious answer to that is “yes” but I've seen a lot of other characterizations over the years, and I'm curious as to what might have informed different interpretations of the character. If someone out-ruthlesses him, who?
If you agree that he does have that mean streak (for lack of a better term; it's not like I'm sitting around feeling sorry for the psychopaths or anything) what exactly pushes his buttons? Is it kids? Families?
Finally, I mention “early episodes” a lot, because while I still see a hardness to Hotch, the pettiness (not exactly the right word, but eh) is gone. Or at least we haven't seen it for a long time. He doesn't let the criminals get to him anymore, at least not in the same way. So is this tendency something he worked through when he was dealing with everything post-Foyet? Maybe, having killed a serial killer with his bare hands, letting one get to him on a deeper level doesn't seem worth his time anymore. Maybe life is bigger than that. He does seem a little (okay, a lot) more removed from the cases this season and last, not as involved with getting inside the head of the killers.
And then there's the fact that Hotch has been really big on shooting people lately, and he's almost always got a cold look on his face while doing it. Not that he's ever looked warm and fuzzy while firing a gun, but he's been particularly business-like about it in recent episodes. That's probably it's own discussion, but maybe not.
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