Don’t mind me. I … have something in my contacts.
Seriously, though, I told Kirsten recently that this is the moment in the episode that renders me inconsolable for the remainder of it. Like, I’m lip-quivering BraveLittleShoulder!LaT all the way through the Phone Call and the gunshots, and I start tearing up when he comes into the den and sees Haley’s body, but it’s this moment right here at which the dam just fucking breaks and I end up outright crying from here until well after Edward Bernero’s executive producer credit. Hotch is just so broken, so emotionally devastated and at his ethical nadir, having just given into an explosion of violence the likes of which he might have always feared he was capable of, but now knows with certainty is within his capability (not that his thought processes are that clear at right this instant; that’s more an epiphany for when he finally tries to get some sleep). And Morgan is just so … gentle with him. I’m always, always struck by the moment in the second .gif, that split-second when he simply holds Hotch. It undoes me every time, that compassion and gentleness in the midst of such an extreme and extremely unsettling and violent situation. Especially, I think, because in that moment, if Hotch is thinking at all, he’s got to be thinking that he doesn’t deserve it. That Morgan intuitively understands that that’s all the more reason why it’s absolutely necessary? It kills me. It straight-up kills me. That’s friendship.
