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.
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