Criminal Minds Review "God Complex"

Review Criminal Minds episode 8.04 "God Complex"

By Merlin

The team are called to New Mexico for a case of people who are found dead with one leg missing. Meanwhile Reid makes phone calls to a mysterious lady.

The episode starts with a guy waking up at what we think is a hospital, looking like he is about to have surgery on his reight knee. Come in the doctor, they both look at each other, the doctor is surprised that the patient is awake, confusion on the patient face. They struggle and the doctor put the gas mask on the patient face. Next time the patient awakes, he is in a hotel being awaked from what he thinks was a nightmare until he realizes he IS missing his right leg! This was a pretty good scene at the 'hospital'. We got a sense of something was wrong with the hospital. Everything was dark, not exactly state of the art equipements.  

The case is all about the doctor, who we'll, later on, find he isn't a doctor but a mortician, who is trying to fix his wife who lost a leg due to an illness. He is a narcisist who thinks he can fix what he perceives as wrong with others, and to do that, he doesn't care who he has to sacrifice for the greater knowledge... and his financial gain! Yes, he and his wife are facing financial difficulties too. Niffty thing, he does have his own ambulance and uses it for blood drives and when he finds a potential match he abducts the person in question! Ray Wise, of Twin Peaks fame, does an excellent job at playing a self centered, obsessed man.

This week's episode introduced Reid's girlfriend. She is very mysterious: whenever she appears on screen, she is kept in the shadows; and to add to the mystery , Reid calls her always from a pay phone! In these day and age, who uses a pay phone!? Why would Reid have to use one and not his own cell phone? What does he have to hide? From who is he hidding? Maybe from Garcia and her super powers when it comes to snopping...? ;) 

 

Lots of questions pile up unanswered when it comes to the new woman in Reid's life the more I (you?) think about her: Who is she? Why is she interested in Reid? We know Reid did sent her his MRI, so is she a doctor?

Adding to the mystery, she mentions trying to keep Reid safe from 'him', Reid asks if he knows about them and if she is safe. Is the 'he' the season long unsub? From the CBS chat with writer Breen Frazier, it was said she was connected but not the way we might think... Also, more puzzling even is the fact that Reid wants to help her, he tells her "My team and I are really good at what we do, why can't you let us help?", but she refuses. Why?

About Reid, is he in love with her or just intrigued or he just wants to help someone in distress? From Reid and Morgan's conversation in the plane at the end, Reid shy smile when Morgan asks him about her, we're lead to believe he at least likes her. As for her, she goes as far as to tell Spencer she's in love with him. On my part, have to love Reid reaction, so stunned that when he leaves the phone booth he takes the wrong way and have to turn around. Cute!

Things that I did like:

* Rossi doing a cognitive interview with the victim at the hospital. Love those interviews where we get to see things from the victims point of view prompted by our profilers skills.

* Totally crazy scene with one of the victim showing up at the hospital with his leg removed and having someone's else leg in its place, and one of different color skin to boot!

* Loved Blake's attitude. She did put in his place the immate she had to interview about the case. The imammate had commited similars crimes and Alex asked him if the limbs were taken for money or else. The man arrogant attitude, demanding to be called Doctor when addressed was crushed by Blake after he demanded to make a deal before he would answer her questions. She noticed his reaction after seeing a picture of the unsub work and deduced accurately that he was not impressed. She refused to make any deal and started to take her leave, and when the man tried to stop her with a "Wait agent..." she replied "Actually, it's Doctor, unlike you I still have my degree. You do have a good day Mr. Smith" and slam!

* And again, what I think is the most important part of all, almost everything we learn about the unsub came from the team, from they work to make the profile. This IS why I watch CM!

On the negative side:

* Not much Hotch in this one; again Hotch got stuck at the police station, when usually Hotch is right in the middle of the action.

 

* Going back to Reid, I get that Reid doesn't want the team to know much about his girlfriend but leaving the crime scene to call her on a pay phone should have raised a few questions. Yes, Blake did ask Reid to explain his actions, but Reid's reasons were not valid. If you don't want the team to get into your personal business then you don't bring your personnal business on the job. Reid is lucky that Blake didn't say anything to Hotch.

Despite my reservations about Reid calling his girlfriend, it was an interesting conversation about what the unsub motives could be about, and the paralel with Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, whose experiments in the Nazi's death camps on twins brought the man's crazy theory on repopulating Germany with women who could conceive multiple embryos. Reid and his mystery girlfriend, or MG as writer Breen Frazier calls her for short, came to the conclusion that the unsub, like Mengele, was pursuing his own improbable cause. 

Conclusion: Very good episode, mostly because of the Reid storyline with his mysterious girlfriend. The case was more than okay, with the unsub very well played by Ray Wise, and it was interesting to see the wife's reaction to what her hubby had been up to all those nights working in his garage. But for me the most interesting part was the Reid storyline and I was glad that FINALLY Reid had something interesting going on, and I say that even if I am not a big Reid fan!

I love a mystery, this is why I love Criminal Minds, hate when we are shown and are told all about the unsub in the first minutes, and this was a good mystery (unsub part), with an even better one (Reid's MG) being painted for all of us to speculate about, and wait with bathed breath how it unfolds!

So, good writing by Breen Frazier, and excellent acting by Matthew Gray Gubler, Ray Wise and Jamie Rose!

P.S: Sorry for the late review, the original reviewer found herself in the path of Hurrican Sandy an was understandably busy dealing with the aftermath of the storm, so someone else had to step up at the last minute to do the review. 

CMRT