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| Studying the watches meaning Determined and decided Shredding a child molester |
This week's episode of
Criminal Minds entitled "
Broken", by
Rick
Dunkle, was a well written and thought out episode from start to finish, and in my opinion, amounted to a nice surprise this season. Many of the episodes so far have felt like
mini horror stories instead of episodes of
Criminal Minds; this season has felt
more or less like watching how many gruesome ways the writers can kill somebody or how sick they can make the unsub, instead of focusing on the actual story.
Not this episode, it reminded me of an "old school"
Criminal Minds when the team used profile to solve the case instead of calling
Garcia on the phone and having her find the unsub narrowing down a list of suspects. This episode had great profiling to solve the case, along with some personality to the characters of the show: the scene between
Morgan and
Reid when the latter figures out that the time is not what it means was funny, as well as a nice moment between the two of them.;
Hotch interrogating the prostitute in prison was powerful and classic
Hotch, something that has been missed in the last two seasons; and
JJ being concerned about helping the kids in the camp, along with solving the case, was also classic
JJ, and it was great to see it again.
The unsub was also hard to hate in this episode. Although it did remind of the episode "
In Heat", this one did take an interesting turn when it featured the two boys from the camp. I like that it dealt with how the same life experience can affect different people. The ending was kind of silly with the unsub wanting his dad to be raped instead of just killing him; that would be the only flaw in this episode, in my opinion. All in all, I thought the case was a great one and the episode was one of the strongest of the season. The season long unsub is a very different story.
I cannot tell you how irritated I am with the season long unsub. I loved the idea but it has been so poorly executed I don't even care about it anymore. All we have gotten over the last fifteen episodes is little scenes of the unsub taking pictures and watching the team. No real clues or mystery, nothing to keep my interest, in fact, I had completely forgotten about in the first part of the season. Now that the unsub was in
Blake's class makes it even worse. She is the newest member of the team and frankly, I don't care if she is being stalked. I don't have anything against
Blake at all, I just don't care what happens to her. I hope the unsub kills her off, that would make the season long unsub story worth watching to me. In my opinion, it should be called the mid season long unsub because the first part of the season with this storyline has been a huge fail and a waste of time.
~~ Iseult
Agreed. Don't care about Blake. They've dropped the ball in plot and momentum for the "season long unsub." It just seems as though they're trying to pathetically re-create the Reaper and the iconic "100." But they're pushing Morgan as though he's supposed to be the star of the show and hyping Reid. Without the fine writing and the acting talent of Thomas Gibson, this series is a sad testament to 'how not to use your actors and how to lose all your good writers.' I keep hearing the cry "No Hotch, no watch." It's something Criminal Minds' producers should heed.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is assuming that the Replicator was in class. A lot of universities are offering recordings of lectures online and as podcasts these days. I figured he was watching her off the Georgetown website.
ReplyDelete- RF
I sympathize with you in regards to Morgan,but not where Reid is concerned.
ReplyDeleteAs a Reid fan.I was extremely unhappy with the way he was neglected the last couple of seasons.And I know I'm not alone in that regard.
So I'm elated that he's finally getting some decent focus this season.
Yeah I also heard the cry "NO Hotch,No Watch" and I perfectly understood where it was coming from.
Bc I felt the same way in regards to Reid.I wasn't at all sure if I could take another season of him being neglected.
I know there's been some improvement in the season,but I still think in many of the episodes too much of the unsub is being shown.
Perhaps if they were to put even more emphasis on our team and less on the unsubs many fans won't feel as though their favorite is being neglected.
I also agree about Blake,whom I happened to like,but she is new and she still has yet to be embraced by a significant part of the fandom.
So I think it would indeed be foolish if they were to put a good deal of significance on her character in regards to the team's stalker
I agree with you both about Morgan and Blake. I think Reid's storyline in season 6 was totally hashed ans as for season 7 I don't think any character had central focus, they all had one or two episode which were supposedly 'their' episodes. Reid has probably the biggest and loudest CM fan base but I think some people may resent how much has happened to Reid and how much we know about Reid. I'm not saying that Reid shouldn't have his storylines and that we don't know a lot about anyone else,Morgan has just as much back story so does Rossi and Hotch has been through a lot too, but Reid's been a prominent character from season 1 whereas some other characters have had to wait a long time to get some storyline so I don't mind if he takes a backseat along with Morgan... Don't want offend anyone, just my opinions.
ReplyDeleteI liked this episode. I could not place the actor playing the unsub at first until someone told me he was on "The 4400".
ReplyDeleteHe seemed more realistic than a lot of the villains thus far this season. I really liked his friend, Mitch. Did Mitch die? I hope not.
This guy seemed more believable, although I thought they showed too much of him and were trying a bit too hard to make him sympathetic. I felt for the victim that had tried to comfort him before being killed.
I thought the flashback scene of the father and the hooker was not necessary. we already got the gist of what happened and didn't need that.
I really loved seeing Hotch read that biyatch the riot act. It seemed almost personal with him.
People on other forums were crying that this one was too political and pushing "the gay agenda". At least one person who claimed to be a psychiatrist claimed that the conversion therapy was a "legitimate psychological treatment" and that homosexuality should not have been removed from the list of psychological disorders. I had to facepalm on that one. I really hope the person was just trolling and not being serious.
I've been alive long enough to remember when any gay person on TV was initially portrayed as promiscuous, deviant, and generally a horrible person. I also remember when the whole "gay is OK" fad kicked in and comic books and TV were scrambling to have a token gay person and really being hamfisted about it. Well, most of it was anyway. In Green Lantern they really went overboard with pushing the issue, but in Flash it was dealt with nicely and with subtlety. But so many of the things were so overboard on it that I used to actively avoid such stories because I don't like feeling like I'm being preached to/lectured by my entertainment.
In this episode I did not get the feeling that it was about any agenda. It was about a victim who'd been abused and how he seemed to be the only one of that group who resorted to such extremes.
In reality, people who go through such camps are much more likely to commit suicide.
I don't think any of the characters should be pushed into the background. I think they should just focus less on the unsubs and more on the team doing the profiling.
I completely forgot to comment on the Replicator part. Yeah, it is not being executed well. I really cringed when they announced that they are NOT going to end it with the finale and will carry it through to the next season.
ReplyDeleteAt least it hasn't been as annoying as the "Jack" stalker thing in the show "The Profiler". That was just cheesy and lame.
Now, according to the writers, the unsub was actually in the room with Blake when she was lecturing and they couldn't show that side of the room. I guess that kills the idea I had that he'd just found the footage from another student or from a camera the university set up to film lectures for remote classes or whatever.
I am starting to like Blake more, but she's pretty new to the team so I wonder why there is so much focus on her. He took Morgan's cup. He sat in Blake's class and filmed her... He somehow found out where Reid was going to be on a Sunday and called him collect on a payphone (or pretended it was a collect call-- because you can't actually make collect calls to payphones). No explanation of how he knew Reid would be there when Reid went to a different payphone each time. How the hell he didn't run out of payphones in the area I don't know... Still doesn't explain how the villain knew the number for that phone.
I'll comment more on newer info in the Carbon Copy thread just in case some people reading this haven't seen it yet.