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Was Emma more a victim or a perp?
FBI: Most Wanted’s latest crime gave us a college student who got sucked into violence that she hadn’t planned on or wanted, including her fear of the boyfriend who was responsible for most of it.
The point of the episode was for Nina to connect with Emma and be able to talk her down because of their shared experience of wanting to escape their family’s legacy, but it also was a perfect case study of how trauma can lead people to do horrible things.
FBI: Most Wanted’s Latest Crime Included A Nuanced Portrait Of An Impressionable College Student
At the beginning of the episode, it was clear that Emma had planned an act of civil disobedience.
Like many real-life young adults protesting climate change, she threw paint on a piece of artwork in a museum and then put her hands up, planning to surrender to security and allow her arrest to make a point.
I don’t agree with those types of protests and don’t think they do the cause of helping the environment much good, but they are a far cry from the trail of murder victims the FBI ended up following in search of her and Trevor.
By the end, Emma was under arrest for a far worse crime, and that was the least of her problems. But to a large extent, it all happened because of her fear of Trevor’s violence.
Trevor started all the trouble by shooting the security guard instead of surrendering, which was what the plan was. He was the one who instigated almost all of the violence, while Emma made half-hearted attempts to talk him out of it, to no avail.
She went along with what he did, making her complicit, yet she also was his victim to a large extent.
In Some Respects, Emma Was A Victim of Domestic Violence
We don’t know what Emma and Trevor’s relationship was like before, but it seemed like he was abusing her during their crime spree.
Shooting the guard was not part of the plan, and Emma likely ran away with Trevor afterward because she was afraid of getting arrested for murder, even though she didn’t pull the trigger and didn’t want anyone to die.
Things spiraled quickly out of control from there, with Trevor getting more and more violent while Emma secretly looked at photos of a white buffalo calf on Instagram and dreamed of a better, more peaceful world.
Trevor kept trying to manipulate her into agreeing with what he was doing, implying she lacked courage because she didn’t want to go along with it, and impulsively committed more acts of violence every time she thought they were going to get out of the situation.
The worst part was the whole Tori sequence, though.
Tori and Emma’s attraction to each other was clear from the moment Trevor and Emma decided to hide out at Tori’s, and it was equally obvious that Trevor didn’t like it.
Trevor was also in charge of that whole situation. He decided that they should hide out at Tori’s, dragging her into FBI: Most Wanted‘s latest crime. He also decided that they should hijack a truck and not pull over when the cops tried to stop them.
He let Tori take the fall, forcing her to be the one to surrender to the police and insisting Emma leave with him.
Tori only agreed to join them in the truck after Trevor killed the driver because Emma was going to be by her side. However, Emma betrayed her on Trevor’s orders, which not only put Tori in a terrible situation but further isolated Emma.
The more isolated Emma became, the more dependent she became on Trevor. Additionally, every new death made her feel more in over her head, so she had no choice but to follow his lead.
Emma’s Still Responsible For Her Choices, But That Doesn’t Make Her Less Of Trevor’s Victim
The tricky thing here is that Emma was complicit with all of it and then turned into a violent person herself after Trevor was killed by the FBI.
There were reasons for all of that.
Emma’s fear of Trevor, sense that she was in over her head, and mental health issues such as depression caused her to feel she had nothing to live for but this unhealthy partnership, especially after Trevor went on a violent crime spree.
Still, she DID have choices, even though they were hard for her to see.
She could have escaped from Trevor and turned herself in or surrendered to the police when Tori did.
Instead, Emma stayed with Trevor, making only a half-hearted effort to talk him out of further violence. Her assistance in sabotaging the gas pipeline put innocent people in danger, and she took a security guard hostage instead of surrendering after Trevor died.
Her arrest was justified, and God only knows what would have happened if Nina hadn’t managed to talk her down.
But the thing I loved about this episode is the focus on Emma’s mental health and how all the trauma she’d experienced influenced her behavior, causing her to spiral quickly from a kid who only wanted to make a statement to a would-be killer who held a gun on a man twice her age.
Why Emma Committed That Final Crime
Although Emma was holding the security guard at gunpoint, I didn’t think she wanted to hurt him. It seemed like she wanted to hurt herself.
Emma had become so dependent on Trevor because of all the violence she’d been complicit in that she didn’t see a point to her life now that the FBI had killed him.
It didn’t help that the baby white buffalo had died, too. Emma’s mental health had deteriorated enough that she thought that the animal’s death was proof the world was dying and that she might as well give up.
I’m not fond of the trope in which people try to use the police to commit suicide, but this was one time when that was exactly what was going on.
It was only because Nina convinced Emma that she could still make up for everything she’d been complicit in and still have a life worth living after she served her time that Emma finally surrendered.
Unfortunately, federal prisons are not known for giving mental health services to inmates, and Emma’s arrest will probably lead to her further traumatization.
Whatever happens to her next is beyond the scope of this show, so we won’t get an update unless she escapes, ready to hurt more people.
But in the meantime, FBI: Most Wanted’s latest crime depicted somebody whose ideals were used against them, demonstrating that trauma responses can sometimes lead people into more trouble, and abuse can contribute to them making choices that hurt themselves and others.
What do you think, FBI: Most Wanted fanatics? Was Emma a victim as well as a perp?
Hit the comments with your thoughts.
FBI: Most Wanted airs on CBS on Tuesdays at 10/9c.
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