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| “ | It's us against the world, dude. It's always been that way. | „ |
| ~ Josh Moore |
| “ | Game on. | „ |
| ~ Matt Moore |
Matthew "Matt" and Joshua "Josh" Moore are the main antagonists of the Criminal Minds episode "The Wheels on the Bus". They are psychopathic brothers who kidnap a group of teenagers and force them to reenact their favorite video game, Gods of Combat, with the end goal of killing the other's "players".
Matt is portrayed by David Gallagher, and Josh is portrayed by Andrew James Allen.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Matt and Josh both displayed sociopathic tendencies from a young age that worsened when their parents divorced and they were separated for the first time in their lives. They maintained their bond by playing Gods of Combat, an online, multiplayer first person shooter video game that also increased their appetite for violence and their sibling rivalry. They were both eventually banned from the game after threatening other players.
Embittered by being kicked off the game, they decided to create a real-life version of it by kidnapping a group of students from their old high school, Central High, and forcing them to play against each other in an abandoned paper mill.
"The Wheels on the Bus"[]
Matt and Josh flag down Central's school bus by pretending to be stranded, and then kill the bus driver and take the students onboard hostage. They eventually release all but 10 students, which is the number they need to play their "game"; each of them gets a "team" of five. They put shock collars on the remaining students and tell them what to do over an intercom as they watch over an Internet feed, remotely torturing them with electric shocks if they disobey.
Josh forces one of the students, Addyson Jones, to shoot and kill her classmate Trent Walker (one of Matt's "players") by threatening to kill her younger brother unless she follows his commands. He further aggravates his brother by personally shooting another of his team members, Wendy Edwards.
Meanwhile, the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) profiles the kidnappers as two close friends or siblings who suffer from gaming addiction, and are recreating the game as a way of acting out an intense rivalry. Reasoning that they would have been kicked out of the game for violating its standards of conduct, technical analyst Penelope Garcia looks into the game's login history and finds Matt and Josh. She also finds their underground frequency and isolates their signal so she can communicate with the students.
When they lose control of the game, Matt and Josh turn on each other, accusing each other of cheating; the situation grows so tense that Matt holds his own brother at gunpoint, even though Josh manages to talk him down. Matt realizes that they have been hacked, and shuts down the system. Knowing they are about to be caught, they decide to "go out in a blaze of glory" by personally killing the students and shooting it out with the FBI. Matt tries to kill Addyson, but BAU agent Spencer Reid arrests him before he can pull the trigger. Josh, meanwhile, commits suicide-by-cop by raising his weapon at agent Derek Morgan, forcing Morgan to shoot him dead. As Matt is taken into custody, he sees his brother's dead body and callously remarks that he has "won".
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The brothers are inspired by multiple real-life and fictional criminals:
- The 1976 Chowchilla kidnappers, a group of two brothers and a third accomplice who held a bus filled with children and the driver hostage for ransom, until they all escaped.
- Devin Moore, a shooter of police who was argued to have been motivated by the Grant Theft Auto franchise.
- Daniel Petric, a killer of both his parents in retribution for his Halo game being taken away, where it was argued his exposure to the games left him incompetent.
- Peter & Paul, the main antagonists of Funny Games, a duo of serial family killers who taunt and torture their captives for fun.
External links[]
- Matt and Josh Moore at the Criminal Minds Wiki
