The wait is almost over, Criminal Minds fans: Season 9 of CBS's hit police procedural premieres on Sept. 25, and the new season promises more drama than ever—both on and off the case—for the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit.
Rumors have been swirling about the mysterious relationship between JJ (AJ Cook) and the new Section Chief Matt Cruz (Esai Morales), and fans still have a lot of unanswered questions about JJ's history. “She's got this enigmatic past,” Cook told Parade.com. “She went away in season 6 and came back a different character. Season 9 is going to be answering what happened that year she was away.”
We chatted with Cook about what’s in store for JJ next season, and she gave us a sneak peek into the much-anticipated 200th episode (which she says will raise a lot of eyebrows)!
The actress also opened up about JJ's new “sarcastic” side, why she can't watch herself on TV, and being thankful for her loyal fans.
On how it feels to return for season 9 of Criminal Minds.
“I feel very fortunate. It seems like just yesterday we had our 100th episode, and here we are entering a season that's going to bring us to our 200th episode! So we're all just sort of shaking our heads right now. We've become a pretty tight-knit group—a family—over the years. We're lucky to be doing it with each other.”
On how her character JJ will evolve this season.
“Season 9 is shaping up to be the ‘JJ’ season, which I'm over the moon about, because there's a lot of mystery surrounding this character. She's got this enigmatic past, where we don't know much about her. She went away in season 6 and she came back a completely different character. Season 9 is going to be answering...
To Read More: Parade.com
I was already dreading Season 9. This hasn't helped!
ReplyDeleteDon't really care about JJ. Not a magnetic character. Give us Hotch...Rossi...Reid even (although I'm heartily sick of both him and Morgan after last season). But JJ? Who cares.
ReplyDeleteseason 9 is the worst season of CM, JJ became bossy, icy, i like the JJ before this season. And i would like to see A Garcia more sparky, and relax like she used to be. still like Garcia but i'm tired of JJ in every scenes of almost every episode of CM season 9.
DeleteDamn. What a waste of a rare and special 200th!
ReplyDeleteReally a police procedural? I thought it was suppose to be a crime procedural about a bunch of profilers getting into the minds of the unsubs, in order to find them and stop their crime spree.
ReplyDeleteI suppose though due to the way the show is written nowadays, it does at time seem like all those other police procedural.
"I was already dreading season 9".... I know exactly how you feel!
Agree with all above but especially about the terrible waste of the rare 200th episode. It makes me not want to watch it. I couldn't care less about what happened to JJ when she was away and she came back much changed for the worse. Character development is one thing, character transplant is quite another!
ReplyDeleteI really don't care about JJ and I'm actually even more tired of characters "not being who we thought they were" after damn near a decade. I really wish they would go back to their profiling procedural roots and stop it with the badly written personal stories.
ReplyDeleteI believe it will be the 189th episode when the new character comes on board. And there is going to be speculation as to what kind of relationship JJ had with him and it won't be resolved until the 200th episode. That is 11 episode, nearly half the freaking season.
ReplyDeleteThis seriously tees me off! What little fall out we got over the fact Hotch and JJ lied to the rest of the team about Emily, which was Reid being angry with JJ, was resolved in one lousy episode.
I seriously need to stop reading these spoiler, bc they keep making me look less and less forward to the new season.
After the cord was cut and the actresses left, I always felt it was a bad idea to bring them back. Paget got one of the great exits from network television as she walked off into the Paris night. To force her to come back against her will seemed foolish. As for the JJ character, all it did was give a false sense of the character's importance. Yes, people wrote in and complained because they thought it was unfair but that didn't mean they wanted the balance changed.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason JJ has a large fanbase with the tweens and that means the show seems to be aimed more and more at that audience and we are losing the intelligent, gritty, adult, profiling drama that was CM at its best. I wish they would stop with the awful backstories and concentrate on the crimes and the profiling. And I agree with Anon at 12.46 - although at the time I was furious with how CBS went about it, having done the deed they should have stuck to their guns and carried on with the focus on the profiling. It has been a slippery slope since Season 6 - there were glimmers of hope in Season 8 but it was dragged down by the terribly written personal stories. I hope the new unit chief doesn't get a role that overshadows the team. I think Messer should move the personal stuff to the odd mention, concentrate on tense crime stories with climaxes where you are on the edge of your seat, slap JJ down a bit, tone Garcia down a lot and throw Beth under a bus - literally!
ReplyDeleteI wish she had not come back. Not interested at all in season 9 anymore.
ReplyDeleteWell I'm in the other group of non Tween, JJ fans.
ReplyDeleteI don't like how they handled JJs return, I'm hesitant about season 9, and as much as I love AJ, I do miss the old JJ, or at least miss the opportunities they could have taken for JJ's return.
But I am interested to see how they write JJ in seasons 9, anything about JJ that isn't mommy/wife JJ related, is better for me.
She has changed, those changes should have been at least mentioned before now, but I'm glad they're going to actually give us some reasons about those changes rather than just skate over the issue. I think season 9 is going to be a lot of red herrings and probably end up giving us more loose ends, but I've wanted to see JJ develop as an agent for a long time and I've wanted to see what she got up to when she was away. I like that she isn't going to be so perfect and that they're going to finally evolve her professional personality a little bit more.
I didn't think the 200th was going to be JJ centric, I had hope for the episode to concentrate on the team as a collective, but there hasn't been a team centric milestone episode yet, and I'd rather it focus on JJ than one of the men on the team. I also don't care that JJ is going to be featured a lot in season 9, or that they're going to look at her time away and highlight her ability to lie, it relates back to her time as a manipulator when she was a media liaison and back to Lauren and hopefully it wont be too combativeJJ and more manipulative/emotive JJ.
She's one of my favourites after Hotch, other characters have had a lot of focus in other seasons, now it's JJ's turn, others might not like that, but I'm curious to see what happens.
Sam
I'm convinced we get all these backstories bc it's the only way these writers know how to give the fans what they've been demanding, more team.
ReplyDeleteWho knows maybe these writers just didn't find the profiling aspect of the show as interesting and compelling as the earlier writers, so the decided to focus on other things.
I'm sorry. I don't mean to diss these writers. I know they work hard to bring us our show, but I'm convinced they don't understand what the original concept of the show and it's characters were about, nearly as much as the earlier writers for CM.
I find myself at times pondering how the show would look today had not the GREED of CBS caused CM to loose those earlier writers.
What a joke. Been a huge fan of criminal minds since season one. But this is ruining the series. Dreading season 9, doubt I'll watch many. Go back to season 3, 4 and 5 standard. And throw JJ off a bridge and take beth with her.
ReplyDeleteSorry writers, producers, etc.. Your ruining the show. Hope season 9 is the end.
So not a JJ fan, and so not looking forward to this, but part of me is curious bc I hope to maybe get some insight as to why she had been an absolute bitch to poor Reid at times.
ReplyDeleteI think the writers who came onto the show and Erica in particularly worked on shows very different to CM. They brought their knowledge and styles from those shows which has altered CM. EB leaving for the spin off and the need to conform to the spin off damaged the show a lot too.
ReplyDeleteIt was like the writers got the show blurb, and worked from that rather than actually watching the early seasons. It became more about what the networks want and making the show more flashy and Hollywood rather than subtle and psychological. the writing became about the unsubs and their whole background, motives, actions, families, etc, and the team development come in the form of love lives rather than seeing the team develop through their jobs and profile the unsubs, even seeing cases through the victims has become an overlooked concept.
I think season 7 was an improvement on season 6 and season 8 was an improvement on 7. But I think both seasons are a long way off seasons 1-5. I don't think the show is ruined, there have been some really good episodes in the last few seasons and unless no one watches season 9, there will probably be a season 10.
I couldn't watch season 8 with that God-awful Blake in it. Her long, loud hissing breaths she has to take before delivering her lines in a vapid, weak voice ruined the pace and made me tune out the entire show. The only one I've cared to watch in reruns was "Brothers Hotchner." Now it sounds as though season 9 will have maybe one episode worth watching: the one with Hotch's emotional fallout from the Reaper. GET A CLUE, WRITERS: If the most highly anticipated episode of 9 is one that harks back to season 5, YOU'VE LOST SOMETHING ALONG THE WAY!! And wasting #200 on J.J.? That's a crime and a shame. You've got a super-talent like Gibson and you toss away a milestone on a boring blonde sidekick?
ReplyDeleteBye bye Criminal Minds.. RIP.
Sad to see this show rot from the inside out. It used to be so good! Thomas Gibson was a powerhouse in #100. Why don't you guys let him out of the Hotch-cage and wow us again? J.J.? Not interested.
ReplyDeleteI seriously hope after this is over, they will concentrate on bringing us episodes that showcase our team doing their jobs and interacting with each other.
ReplyDelete100 may have been Hotch centric ,but it also had a compelling case and the rest of the team was showcased really well. And I'm really hoping this 200th episode, despite these spoilers, turns out the same way.
Anon 2:00 - when has JJ been an absolute bitch to poor Reid?
ReplyDeleteShe was extremely concerned for him when Maeve died and was there for him when he needed her. She's done her best to include him into her family and keep him connected to Henry. She's been by his side whenever she could be and gone out of her way to make things right between them. JJ does her best to involve him in group interactions, and often explains to him things that go over his head.
Sure she's sarcastic at times, that's not necessarily bitchy. Morgan, Prentiss, Seaver, Rossi, Garcia and even Hotch have rolled eyes, made comments and laughed in exasperation at Reid. Yes she lied to him, she lied to everyone else too and did it to protect him, the rest of the team and Prentiss, she would have put him into danger if she had told him the truth and he's an FBi agent, he should know that there are things he can't be told, if anything it was bitchy of him to guilt trip her over his addiction.
They've hinted at Reid having aspergers, yes that should never be made fun off, but theyre not making fun of him. JJ treats Reid as her little brother and sometimes pokes fun at him (not his mental health) or has fun with him, just like everyone else does, but its not about him being different or vulnerable, and there's no intention of being an absolute bitch towards him.
If anything, he totally overreacted and allowed his emotions to overtake him after Prentiss was revealed to be alive. Yes it wasn't nice that the team mourned unnecessarily, but they're adults and they could have talked things out and worked out their issues, Reid's a grown man, with an important job in a professional field, and has an attitude of his own. JJ's treatment of Reid is not malicious, and Reid can hold his own, he's not an innocent baby, if she pisses him off he'll tell her. Reid is just as bitchy as JJ, but people seem to think he's completely vulnerable, when it's been proven he's not.
Season's 1-5 of Criminal Minds were superb, so many fantastic episodes, plots, unsubs, edge of the seat stuff..
ReplyDeleteSeason 6-8 have been instantly forgettable, nothing worth noting. If your a JJ/Reid fan.. yes you'll enjoy the last few seasons and Season 9. If like me you don't like either then sadly a show is ruined.
Season 9.. I'll tune in when they pick up the Hotch/Reaper story.. not that i'm expecting much since they seem incapable of WOWing a viewer these days. But beyond that. RIP Criminal Minds. As far as i'm concerned it ended at the end of season 5.
JJ, Reid, Blake, Beth, Morgan, all irritating and over used. (Dear god i'll go insane if they touch on Morgans past one more time)
Hotch and Rossi - strong actors, far to under used of late. Hotch has become the "wheels up" man and thats it.. Rossi.. has done nothing. I'm very surprised both actors came back to be honest.
Now i must find out what else is on the same time as criminal minds.. cos i sure as hell wont be watching the JJ show.
Re Anon at 2.34. Let's not forget how unprofessional and careless of everyone's safety JJ was by keeping in touch with Prentiss and playing online scrabble during the time she was supposedly dead! That has always bothered me.
ReplyDeleteAlso the ridiculous resolution of the trust issues with a bowl of pasta at Rossi's was quite frankly insulting the intelligence of the viewer.
And I do believe Reid must have had his sobriety challenged by Emily's death as they had a close relationship so it was valid that he point that out to JJ.
I assumed from that scene on the plane, that JJ and Prentiss, used secure networks, used anonymous names and never revealed anything personal. It was a way to allow JJ to keep track of the person she placed into hiding and a way to check Prentiss was remaining sane, it was never indicated that there was security issues in that scenario, but Doyle wouldn't have stopped going of after Prentiss if it was believed she was alive and he'd already threatened to go after the team and was keeping tracks on them, so JJ, Hotch and whoever helped them did what they thought was best for all of their colleagues safety.
ReplyDeleteReid may have considered relapsing, that would have been awful for him, amd yes, he should have mentioned it to JJ but that's not on JJs shoulders, if she had any indication that he would have relapsed she would have gotten him help. Reid had to have strong will not to relapse, you don't put all the blame onto your friend after all the guilt she went through when he was kidnapped in the first place, kept close tabs on him during Prentiss' absence and gone out her way to make things right. JJ does have culpability, I'm not saying she doesn't, but she's not completely to blame in that scenario. Reid has to have full responsibility, control and have strength in difficult situations otherwise he'd have relapsed dozens of times since then.
And I completly agree about Dinner at Rossi's clinking glasses scenes. It doesn't show how they're a family, it's incredibly cheesy and does insult the viewers.
Playing scrabble online was a stupid thing to do on both JJ and Emily's part. What if Doyle or one of his people had hacked their computers and found out Emily was still alive. Not to mention it also showed a complete lack of consideration in regards to the grief their co workers must've been feeling.
ReplyDeleteI no longer like JJ, but I blame that fact on the way she is written today. I have no animosity towards the young woman herself.
ReplyDeleteBut I feel some disgruntled fans have crossed the line and our viciously attacking the actors themselves.
And sorry Hotch fans he may be a great character but no character by their self makes the show. And he isn't the only character who has had to spend time in the background.
The problem with Hotchs arc for the last two season is that it's been boring. He's my fav and it pains me what story lines they've given him. I don't care about Beth and Brothers Hotchner should have been so much better than it was. I don't know if it's because TG wanted Hotch to be happy, or if personal situations shifted the light off of Hotch, but there's been a lack of Hotch. I want more Hotch, I want to see him as the boss and I want to see him interacting with different team members. I want more JJ and Hotch scenes like the ones we used to get, I want to see more Hotch and Garcia and Hotch and Rossi scenes are usually really great.
ReplyDeleteRossi, I love way more than Gideon, but I don't want another unfinished business case for him and I don't really want another love appearing. I'd like to see follow up to his relationship with Strauss. They gave us nothing while she was alive, so let us see him interact with her kids and grieve. I don't need Rossi's focus to be on his love life only, like Hotch's episodes often become, but I'd like to see how all his grief over the years had affected him, and to see him become more of how he's supposed to be a founding member of the BAU and be that mentor for the team as a whole without becoming Gideon esque douchy.
The less Morgan for me the better, I don't get his acting style. The others I think of as characters but Morgan is Shemar Moore acting as Derek Morgan.
I love JJ, I wish the writers did different story lines for JJ and I wish they had more focus on her sooner to develop JJ properly rather than just making everything happen off screen, but if they manage to finally figure out how to write JJ and figure out who they want JJ to be in her own right as an individual character, then I'll be happy.
Garcia they need to tone down and remember that quirky doesn't need to be constant, and child like behaviour isn't that cute in a thirty odd year old woman who has a rather important job on the team. (also if they took some responsibilities off Garcia and made her typing less miracle work that wouldnt be awful)
Reid just needs less trauma/focus and Blake needs some development and personality, but scenes together would be appreciated.
Anon 3:14 - there was no reason for Doyle or his henchmen to hack into JJ or Prentiss computers, because Prentiss was dead and no one had any reason to believe otherwise because JJ and Hotch kept Prentiss being alive a secret, not only from the rest of the world, but also the people closest to Prentiss, who were grieving and showing no signs of anything otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI think TG and JM are great, but it is a show about the collective. I loved season 5, because there was a lot of Hotch, but the team were a huge presence and everyone got a moment to shine at some point in the season.
ReplyDeleteI would want everyone on show to get moments. The fandom have different favourites. If everyone gets at least one episode that their characters favourite being centric then that's on par with the last two seasons and having differences of opinions is a good thing, it opens discussions and debates.
No one on the team should be overlooked and I don't think season 9 is going to overlook anyone. JJ is going to have her moments but even in this article, it says that they're going to let things hang for a while - to leave questions to be answered later - and to let other characters have their episodes. Even in season 5 which was Hotch heavy other characters had their moments, in Reid heavy seasons, there were huge arcs for other characters, just because JJ is going to have big moments in season 9, they're not going to just forget that other characters exist.
For me, the show has been improving since season 6. It isn't back to where it was and I have huge issues with certain things that happen. I'm still going to bitch when Morgan or Reid annoy me and I'm still going bitch about unsub heavy episodes, I'll whine about all the different roads the could have taken for certain characters and I'll bemoan annoying moments between Garcia and Morgan, but there's going to be moments I love. There's going to be episodes which leave me on the edge of my seat and I'll love every minute JJ and Hotch share scenes even if it's the tiniest thing.And I'll still watch season 9.
I want to see where they take season 9, I won't agree with everything the writers do, or how the actors portray their characters and sure as hell won't like a lot of the cases, but I'm still going to watch and be waiting every week to see what happens next.
I am a Reid fan and I do believe the Reid haters exaggerate the focus he had in S8. It was usually a minute or less at the end of a few episodes.
ReplyDeleteReid at least has some depth of character and most of his moments were linked to cases.
Everyone had their own very intensive episodes during the season - Hotch's was completely wasted. i was so looking forward to seeing Sean Hotchner return but the story was blah and totally ruined by the cardboard Beth moments.
Rossi I thought had a better season with some fantastic one liners.
JJ just irritates - I am sure AJ is a nice woman but she doesn't stand out as an actress. In this show at least.
Morgan is never really believable - it is always Shemar acting and being "silly and sexy" as he puts it all the time.
I think Blake is getting there. I enjoyed her episode #6.
Where they are going wrong is losing the core of the show, the nail-biting criminal profiling - will they work it out in time to save the victim or not? And too often they fall back on improbably quick extraction of insanely minute detail by Garcia on her computer in order to wrap up the crime.
I wish the writers and showrunners would sit down to a marathon of Seasons 3, 4 and 5 which were the best years for the show. Perhaps it would sink in where they are going wrong.
Reid should get his moments, he has a lot of fans, but so do the other 6 team members.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge Reid fan, nor am I huge Morgan fan, or Garcia's at the moment (she was my fav lady, but now she just irritates me), but them three should still get episodes because they're core character and it keeps their fans happy, just as JJ, Hotch and Rossi, even Blake episodes keep me happy.
JJ is going to get focus next season, she may have featured quite a lot in the last two seasons, but her episode often become about someone else or aren't that revealing about who JJ is. I'm looking forward to learning more about her. I know others aren't, but in JJs episodes the other characters are still going ot have roles and if JJ's episodes really bother you next season, do what I do with many Morgan and Reid episodes, fast forward to the parts with other characters/ more interesting scenes, or don't bother watching.
The other team members are going to have major parts in season 9, if the writers have some clue, they'll tie whatever JJ,s arc is with the other characters as well somehow. It's not as if every single episode is going to be JJ centric and it's not as if it's going to become The JJ show with others on the side like season one was with Gideon.
The writers might not know the show like the previous writers did and the show has changed a lot, but I do think the last few seasons have been more fair for all the characters on the show, even if I haven't liked everything they've done.
I'm of two minds on this. (neither Criminal)
ReplyDeleteThis show captured all of us with its characters, its premise, and some pretty intriguing stories. The premise is still there, if not always as true to the original as one might like. The stories vary in quality. But, really, they always have. And the characters....well, we still care enough to have some pretty strong opinions about them, don't we? And we feel like we 'own' them, and like we may know them better than the writers, and producers and actors. Yet, we wouldn't know them at all except for those same writers and producers and actors.
The real problem is the change of staffing at CM----not because of better or worse quality. Just because of differences. The dilemma of handing off a set of characters from one writer, or set of writers, to another, is that it risks, and maybe even breeds, inconsistency. Real, flesh and blood human beings are prone to inconsistencies as well, but not to the degree that we see played out on our screens. Real life inconsistencies happen because of life circumstances, but humans remain, at their core, who they have always been.
If AJ and the CM writers want us to buy into the back story about why JJ radically changed personalities (and please let it have nothing to do with cloning!), then the story will have to be about how a competent, caring media liaison suffered some trauma that made her feel vulnerable. And how it made her feel like she needed to harden her exterior. And then, as happens with true maturity, how she is now struggling to get back to who she used to be.
Here's hoping the writers understand this. If not....well, I'm sure it can be fixed in fan fiction!
I totally agree 4:56.
ReplyDeleteI read into her personality alteration in the first episode of season 7 that something had happened to JJ while she was away which changed her.
Then when nothing was explained, I guessed it was because of what happened with Prentiss or because she was a profiler and Hotch over the years has told others they can't get close or emotional over cases, like JJ could when she was a media liaison.
For me, JJ had changed but I could still identify old JJ, whereas others Dnt seem to see any elements of old JJ in the new one.
It's just a shame that nothing was explained, that we had to infer these things, for so long after JJs return. If they did the story line right in the first place, there would be no question over JJ's personality differences or having to readdress story lines that they thought was put to rest. More people could be open to new JJ because there was a reason given in the show for JJ to change, instead there wasn't all of the reasons were given elsewhere and JJ changing didn't make sense for a lot of people.
The writers don't want to keep on writing the same old thing, they all have different interpretations of what an episode should be about and even who the characters are. It's great that they want to evolve the show and give us something we've supposedly never seen before, but they rarely do evolve any aspect of the show, they just change it or make it something it's not.
A reminder,
ReplyDeleteYou do not like a character or storyline, fine, say so and move on BUT posting again and again and again and saying basically the same thing is bashing and it is not acceptable.
We will disable the anonymous posting if this continue.
CMRT administrator
I know this changes the topic a little, but I really hope JJ and Matt Cruz bring in some conflict for the team. I think the group needs a little ruffling of feathers that doesn't get dropped straight away. That's one aspect of the arc I'm hoping to look forward too.
ReplyDelete*the word bashing online always makes me chuckle. It means something completely different In my region.
Anonymous posting have been disable after reading comments that were insulting to some cast member. THIS is NOT acceptable, all comments that come even CLOSE to insulting anyone on the cast and crew or other fans will be deleted.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous posting will not be back until some learn to post their opinions without bashing or insulting people.
CMRT administrator
I happen to be a huge JJ fan and can not wait until season 9! I happen to like every character on the show and I love watching every week. However it is just a television show for our entertainment. I look forward to having the season focus on JJ, Aj Cook is an amazing actress and I can't wait for her to show us more!!
ReplyDeleteI believe it's the person who is called the gripper whose job it is to make sure that there is consistency through out what we are seeing in that scene. The scene has to look like it took place the same day even if it was filmed over several different days. Otherwise people would be scratching their heads in bewilderment as to what just happened to the scene. Did Samantha twitch or did Jeannie blink.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we've got these folks. It would almost be impossible to watch a scene that had all those glaring inconsistencies "Hey wait a minute!" "Wasn't she wearing a red dress,well now it's blue"
As a long time fan of this show and these characters I do get bothered by what I sometimes see as blaring consistencies in the writing itself
I do so wish they wouldn't be so willing to give these cast members what they want in regards to their character.
ReplyDeleteJJ has been ruined for many of us bc they gave into AJ Cook's demand for these changes in her character. And we are stuck with that lame Hotch/Beth story line, bc TG had supposedly wanted Hotch to have a girlfriend.
I adore MGG and Reid is my favorite character. But the show should never have gone along with Matthew's insistence that Reid has this aversion to technology. To me it's a contradiction of what we saw of Reid in the earlier seasons. And can one have a degree in engineering and still be a technophobe?
Now I do understand why Reid would want to figure out something in his head as oppose to using the computer. That big ole brain of his can work faster than any computer
I didn't mind JJ as a liaison, but as a profiler, and looking as AJ Cook? Should we assume she is too lazy to act? She just said she felt as if prior seasons felt as she wasn't herself. Face palm. Actors are suppose to put themselves in other people's shoes! I don't care about her as JJ anymore, so I record the show in my DVDr and then watch it by skipping all her scenes as well as Garcia, since she is the only one even worst than this new JJ. Now Garcia looks like Kirsten, JJ looks like AJ Cook, and Reid is slowly becoming Gubler, which I don't approve at all. They are being paid to act as characters, not to play themselves in a talk show. At least Moore is consistent, since he has never been good at acting, at least he doesn't change that much...
ReplyDeleteI don't know where in the world AJ Cook got the idea that JJ was rather timid in those earlier seasons. JJ was far from timid.
ReplyDeleteJJ was the one who always took care of the entire team , as well as an older sister or mom . Always in the background, but always there. I think we are now trying to fill the void left by Emily because it failed to Blake . My opinion is that they are headed in the wrong direction , and if they continue so it will be just an average TV show Crimi
ReplyDeleteI actually love that JJ is going to ruffle some feathers and that they're going to develop on that she's a good secret keeper.
ReplyDeleteI think we've never really known who JJ was. Sure she was a nurturer, but only really to Henry. She consoled victims and families and we saw her concern for her team mates over the years, but we've never really seen her get too close to anyone on the team. She's friendly and she'll show worry, but she doesn't seem to know how to deal with those emotions. Every time JJ has broken, she's struggled to understand why she can't be more composed; amplification, birthright, revelations and Run, shows that she can't quite handle loosing it.
She's always been distant too, not necessarily warm and welcoming, unless its her place in cases to be that person in order to get the job done. JJ held Will off as long as she could, in her first episode she was extremely distant from the profilers, even when she was leaving the team, she didn't really connect with anyone, yes she hugged Garcia and told Hotch she didn't want to leave, but she avoided telling anyone about the Pentagon in the first place, she locked herself away in the jet bathroom to deal and then she stoically told the team she had to go.
I love JJ and I'm glad they're going to address what happened while she was away, finally, but I don't think her personality change is completely a 180 of her old self, i just think she isn't placed in positions where she has to be the understanding, caring one as much. I also think its more AJ that's changed and not JJ and she's far more defensive now in her job, because of what happened. Rightly so, they treat her like crap, but I think AJ should have developed on what was there already rather than viewing it as a completely new character, because she's not, she was always had the characterisations she has now, it's just more noticeable.
I'm sorry that the actress was hurt over the network's treatment of her, but to let it spill over into how she is now playing her character is very unprofessional imo.And it has pretty much ruined this character that I was once fond of.
ReplyDeleteI dont think its unprofessional, I just think she had a wake up call and isnt as trusting of the people she works for anymore. But maybes its just me, Paget/Prentiss was the same. During season 7 and 6, I felt that it was obvious Paget didn't want to be there, and it came across in the way she portrayed Prentiss. Rather than accepting what happened and pursuing a new arc for her character she left on her own terms which everyone now accepts.
ReplyDeleteRather than coming back into the same position, being vulnerable to be let go again, but wanting to give the fans new/ more focused story lines for the character, AJ and the writers decided to give JJ a new perspective. I don't think JJ has completely changed, like its been said, there are still obvious traits that JJ possess from her previous years, I just don't think the writers have focused on JJ that much to realise, that she is still the same person, but she has been through something which has lessened the warmer side to her, and rather than explaining their reasons for that, they've waited two seasons. In interviews the writers tend to name every other character they love to write before they name JJ. They never knew how to integrate media liaison JJ fully into the show and now they don't know how to really distinguish profiler JJ without falling back on previous story lines.
It's also like they've forgotten everything they've wrote for JJ beforehand and AJ obviously views her previous time differently from many fans. But then again, in previous seasons, JJ would disappear for half an episode, she was often stuck in a police station or an office and got limited centric episodes which often shifted focus from JJ to others she was interacting with on the team, those in the field, profiling, and having more complex backgrounds/personalities were deemed more necessary, so it's understandable that she views old JJ as being weaker and for their to be a need to change things up.
I do think that they really want to do justice to JJ and all of the things they've overlooked for JJ, I just think that if they explained JJ's return better in the first place and gave hints that others on the team and JJ acknowledged these changes and made comments about the fact that JJ is not who she used to be or asked what she got up to while she was away, it might have helped to integrate JJ as a profiler better on the show.
This whole scenario about JJ being taking away from them never made sense to me. And I don't think the writers thought it thru.The fact is JJ's exit story was a parallel to what had happened to AJ herself.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all why JJ. I get that she is a very capable agent, but so what, so is the rest of the team. Why not someone like Hotch or Rossi with their extensive backgrounds. And what about Reid? With him being a genius he would also seem a more likely choice. Or why not Garcia. I know she isn't an agent, but she is a computer whiz.
And second of all why after being unable to prevent her transfer in the first place, were they then so easily able to turn around and get JJ back.This has always been a great source of irritation to me regarding JJ's exit story.
And I'm hoping with this being the JJ season(YUCK!)all of this will be cleared up for me.
I think these issues will be addressed next season.
ReplyDeleteI don't think season 9 is going to be as JJ heavy as the spoilers seem to suggest. JJs arc is going to be a big part of the season, but others are going to get episodes and there will probably be other arcs, but JJs past/issues will be dealt with and concluded, probably in 201, the same way Hotchs season 5 arc basically ended by 101.
I think JJ needs to have these details kinked out, if just to explain her changes so we start to accept why she is the way she is now. If they dealt with why JJ left to do what and how she was back straight away, thered be no need to do it now. While the other characters have plot holes, JJ has the least development and very big plot holes. The writers often forget that their logic and reasoning doesn't show on screen unless they actually show it.
"I am a Reid fan and I do believe the Reid haters exaggerate"....
ReplyDeleteAnd lets not forget their refusal or inability to recognize that Reid himself went thru a couple of seasons of neglect.
"If your a JJ/Reid fan.. yes you'll enjoy the last few season"
I'm not a JJ fan but I highly doubt that her fans enjoyed season 6 all that much since she wasn't there.
Now I am a huge Reid fan and I can tell you that I enjoyed season 6 particularly the later half of it and almost all of season 7 about as much as Hotch fans enjoyed season 8.
Hands up here, not the hugest Reid fan. Not liking Reid as much as other characters doesn't make me a Reid hater, he just aint my fav, although I do think some Reid fans often take any slight against the character as hate, when its just a matter of opinion. Soz.
ReplyDeleteFor me, character driven episodes aren't so much about quantity, it's about quality. If we see a character focused episode 10times in one season, it won't help us learn anything or be any good if the episodes aren't actually written well and advance the character some how.
For me, this is why I sometimes complain that Reid has had more focus, it's not necessarily that he's had a lot of screen time, espec post season 5, yes seasons 1-4, I would say we had more focus on Reid followed by Hotch and Morgan more than any others, but looking from 1-8 Reid has had the most focus which actually amounts to something in comparison to other characters, along with probably Morgan. While Hotch has had a lot of episodes, I'd still say we know more about Reid and Morgan.
Reid might not have had much focus over a few seasons, but in his centric episodes, we actually learn stuff about him, whether its psychological issues, parental problems, age concerns, goals and achievements, psychical issues. Reid actually goes through stuff, he has a complex relationship and has to deal with all of that and then goes through loss and grief, he gets shot, he gets kidnapped or held hostage, he gets drugged or poisoned, he connects with an UNSUB and puts himself in danger, he witnesses or thinks he witness a crime, he suspects his father of being a baddy, he watches someone die, he deals with his schizophrenic mother etc, even in episodes that aren't focused on him, he's a constant presence, he might not be the one connecting to the case, but he's instrumental in solving the case, making jokes, pulling pranks, sprouting off facts etc, he stands out because of who is, so even if in an episode all hes doing is a geographical profile it still stands out more than Hotch going on a date for example, and sometimes I wish they put as much effort into the other characters or at least put as much thought into the other characters as they do with Reid and say Garcia, the other strong personality on the team.
(I do think they still mess up Garcia and Reid when they try to hard to make them different and special but you can tell the writers enjoy writing those two characters and sometimes it feels like the other characters are just added when needed or available)
Then you look at another character like JJ and we keep getting repetitive story lines, so that when we do get an episode focused on JJ, it's about her being a mom/wife or dealing with her sister. Don't get me wrong, I like that we get to see her and we aren't getting episodes where its supposed to be a JJ episode and it becomes about someone else, but in season 7 they rehashed JJ struggling with mommy issues in the first half, then went back to her family in the finale, only for me, those two epsiodes told us more about Will and Prentiss than they did JJ.
Look at Hotch, he's had quite a few supposedly centric episodes over seasons 7 and 8, if you look back, not as much focus as 1-5 but he's had some good amount of screen time, it's just been so boring and repetitively about Beth and his relationship that we haven't learnt much about him.
Tbh, season 9 could all be about JJ but it won't be any good or we won't actually learn anything about JJ if they don't improve the quality of JJ episodes and that goes for every character driven episode. I'd rather have one amazing character centric episode in a season where we see development or get a better understanding of a character than have dozens of character driven episodes in one season, where we learn nothing but get to see them running around with a gun etc.
I'm not thrilled about this being the JJ/Mary Sue season, however I can learn to deal with it, if I feel the episodes themselves are well written.
ReplyDeleteI am really hoping that JJ's backstory will somehow, no matter how insignificant, tie into the case the team is working on.
And writers PLEASE STOP MAKING THE TEAM DOING IT'S JOB AND INTERACTING WITH EACH OTHER TAKE A BACKSEAT TO THESE SO CALLED BACKSTORIES AND PERSONAL MOMENTS!
Can't wait for the 200th episode I'm so excited love JJ and can't wait to find out what happened to her when she left. Loving everything about criminal minds lately minus Emily leaving but I'm sure she will have some moments here and there.
ReplyDelete