I sat down to watch this episode and was really hoping after last week's episode I was going to be wowed. And the truth is the opening seen with the single woman struggling with her grocery bags getting on the bus provided sufficient creepy to get me excited.
Watching the other riders as she walked to her seat had me trying to guess 'which' one was the unsub. When she sat down and we see the geeky young man staring at her I was so sure that “Ahhh HA” he's the unsub! We saw how each of other riders fade out as they got off at their stops and yet
Mr. Geeky was still on the bus. I just knew he was the unsub. Boy was I wrong.
Next we see the young woman walking, apparently to her home, spooky nighttime setting and
Bus Dude following her. I was thinking this is it, the unsub going to snatch her. Wrong again, we find out that guy from bus (
Russell) was only trying to do something nice for her and return a bag she dropped. Chivalry isn't dead after all.
As my heart and head begin to calm down I must admit I thought 'whoa, I missed something.' Now we have geeky guy calling his mother. Ok,
Mama's Boy I get it. Issues from that, ok sounds like typical makings of an unsub, as we had seen the team explain back in
'Profiling 101'.
But then, another misdirection, dog barking dark creepy alleyway, hooded creepy guy and “
Mr. Nice Guy stopping.” This is it I think, unsub… And Yes, I'm right…
Mr. Nice Guy is snatched.
We are then greeted by our not so athletically active
Tech Analyst and our
Pretty Boy (OHH the horror of the 80s running shorts) running their fannies off on a track. Huffing and puffing their way into a closer shot.
I have to admit, it was a cute scene.
Garcia was dead on with her description of how enthusiastic
Morgan is about training, and with her goofy 'training' get up, and
Reid apparently in desperate need of an oxygen tank, with his retro shop 80s shorts. You can tell these two do NOT want to be doing this, and I admit I felt bad for them. Dang
FBI regulations.
But wait, saved by the ringtone.
Garcia's phone goes off and she lights up when she sees the text message from Hotch (ohh, he's still the boss, insert sarcasm) telling her she needs to come for a case.
Garcia's happy, and
Reid, awe well hell his line. “I'm just going to have a heart attack really quick” was priceless.
Cut to
BAU, poor
Garcia and the shoes, you know she's hurting. Yet here comes her nemesis aka:
Derek Morgan, all sympathetic yet, sly. He's up to something? And to prove that we then have
Derek… Sniffing
Garcia for
Ben Gay!
The round-table room was really interesting and the input from everyone was good. Not too over the top by any one team member.
We next see
Russell, who I'm kind of rooting for to make it through this mess, being hosed down in a cage while a dog barks incessantly in the background… I liked how we saw most of what was happening through the lens of the camera the unsub placed on a stool to record what's happening.
Being caged like an animal is rather unpleasant, but happy to see unsub is 'hidden' from our view. Poor
Russell to be caged and alone like that… treated like a dog…
Reid gets the beginning quote and we see the team on the plane.
Garcia is on her video link telling team about what she found out about 3 previous victims. The discussion ensues and it's not bad. Seems the whole team is putting in their input.
Hotch, rightfully, gives the orders of where each team member is supposed to go when they land.
So we have
Morgan and
JJ at the crime scene… again.
Rossi and
Reid at ME's… again.
Hotch and
Blake to the police department… again.
While I wished it was anyone other than
JJ/
Morgan at the crime scene (dump site) again, their interaction was good and spot on for profiling deductions regarding what they were seeing at the scene.
Rossi and
Reid at the ME's office has
Rossi asking questions about the condition of the bodies, while
Reid speed reads through the ME's reports. Apparently the ME has never seen someone read 20,000 words per minute because his line about “Boy, you read fast” and
Reid's reaction to that is cute.
Reid has some ideas about what the bite marks are about and he's doing well conveying his thoughts to
Rossi, and finally agrees with
Rossi that based on what they know there is probably already another victim. *I like
Rossi and
Reid together*
Cut to
Russell hearing a woman call out “hello” and for help. He can't help her but asks her a question about how long she's been there. The silence lasts for a few pregnant pauses of time as we see
Russell trapped in his cage, we then hear a deranged sounding voice screaming about how she's going to eat him and eat his face off. We also see the unsub going to another cage and dragging someone (apparently the woman) from the cage.
Russell's fear is quite evident, and by this time my heart is begging that the writers save him from whatever nasty is waiting him. The creepy unsub bringing poor
Russell food like a dog and telling him he'll need his strength does nothing to allay my fear for
Russell's future.
I will say, I was happy to see that the unsub while 'present' was hidden from our view by the creepy hockey mask. Kept us guessing, yet added to the 'creep' factor.
Meeting back at police station poor
Reid is stretching his non genius muscles and
Morgan is showing concern for him.
Reid trying to hide his 'discomfort' with the comment “I'm just stretching because it helps me keep my brain limber” was so 'kitsch' it was funny. The profiling between
Hotch,
Reid,
Morgan, and
JJ, with
Reid explaining his geographical profile was good, they went back and forth and
Reid was 'fast' talking his theories like
Reid of old.
Russell pleading for his mom as he's being dragged by his bindings is sad. Having the woman coming at him with her mouth foaming is creepy, and so sad…
That the unsub is videotaping everything also lends to the 'horror' of what's happening.
Garcia's computer skills tracking dot to dot, to find the unsub, and the reason for why he did this was predictable but yet classic
Garcia… And we now see
Rossi,
Reid and
Morgan listening to her dissertation about the previous victims.
Reid's look of clarity when
Garcia mentions that one victim worked in animal control is telling about where his thinking is going, and I liked it.
Morgan having to slow down
Reid's rambling as he explains what he's thinking is a good addition, as that has happened before with all the team members.
Reid just talks too dang fast for most people.
Rossi's comment about Rabies is funny. I know, I know, Rabies is nothing to laugh about but hey, it's
Rossi, and
Joe delivers the lines just so '
Rossi like'. And
Reid's face when he says “Yikes!” is cute.
As is common the whole team is present presenting some aspects of their profile. And in truth, so far so good on the team dynamics.
The director did a nice job overlaying scenes of the tied down rabid woman which only heightens the severity of what is happening and what the team is describing. The actress played the part well and I give her kudos for that. Seeing the 'normal' picture of the woman now so tortured by the Rabies disease and seeing she's a wife and mother is sad.
Russell again begging for his mom, just too even talk to her, is heartbreaking.
The team working together trying to deduce what is going on is good,
Reid is spot on in his explanations and everyone in the room gives some input.
Reid's description of a rabies death has me again worrying for poor
Russell, and seeing the woman terrified of the water only made me realize that she probably wasn't going to make it out of this alive.
The progression video on the unsub's computer is actually a heartbreaking way to show the viewers what
Reid just explained.
Garcia from her 'lair' is classic
Garcia and the information that she dug up was helping
Reid,
Morgan and
JJ hone in on who the unsub was. It felt like cases of old.
Watching the unsub video tape
Russell and seeing him tied up sick pulled at my heart strings.
Russell begging to talk to his mom because she's just had heart surgery only added to that.
The woman being held captive with
Russell is still managing to maintain her humanity but yet her escape is scary as well… not just because she couldn't get
Russell out with her but because as infected as she is, she's now a danger to the outside world.
The darkness of the setting used at
David Cunningham's (Unsub) house made me feel like the team was too late, in their search for him. I would have liked it better if it wasn't
Morgan and
JJ with
Reid doing the search. But the interactions between the three agents was done well.
Up until this point we've seen little to no
Alex Blake and I had to wonder where she was. Is that a product of writers not knowing how to write for her character? My guess is yes.
As the search of the unsub's house continues in the daylight, I did like the use of
Reid, finding more proof that they have the right guy. When
JJ brings the tape recording of
David Cunningham's little brother battling the rabies virus, and then seeing
JJ's reaction to hearing it was very good.
AJ Cook's facial expressions are spot on to a mother hearing a child in distress. And very 'old school'
JJ.
Reid's comment about euthanasia all of sudden makes sense as to why there was no death certificate for
Hunter Cunningham.
I liked
Russell standing up to
David in the next scene, gave me hope that he might live. But also brought back the point that the woman had gotten away and was outside infected with Rabies.
And just as I had that thought we cut from unsub to sick woman in crowded coffee shop highlighting the effect that she's sick and people are in danger.
The vendor giving
Rossi his coffee with extra foam right before we have
Rossi and
Hotch finding out about the woman in the coffee shop foaming at the mouth, makes
Rossi's facial expression looking at his drink after that revelation priceless.
Hotch sending
Morgan,
JJ and
Reid after the woman because they're closer again highlights the severity of the situation.
Seeing this sick woman, who was an innocent victim, desperately seeking “where she is?” in her delusional state is poignant. By this time there is the sense that she is too far gone in the disease and will not survive.
I cannot imagine how
Morgan, or even
Reid and
JJ watching
Morgan try to stop this poor woman from coming closer to them, felt. Having to 'shoot' her to protect himself and his teammates must have been a very hard thing to do, even though he's trained to disable someone with a gunshot. The look of horror on
Reid's face, and the pained look of sympathy on
JJ's face was more than words could ever do. Very good directing in this scene.
Slowly fading into
Morgan and
Reid around the ambulance and the team (all six of them,
Blake's returned) giving
Garcia information to help in her deducing where the unsub's hideout was, was a good use of the team. I liked that it was
Hotch who called
Garcia, and then
Garcia using her computers to find out that there is an abandoned city animal shelter near where they are. What will get me by the end is that this building does not look very big in size. Yet
Hotch,
Rossi and
Blake got lost apparently once inside.
What I didn't like was partnering
Hotch,
Rossi, and
Blake, the older agents, and then
Morgan,
Reid and
JJ the younger agents. Age was never an issue in
Criminal Minds but apparently now it is.
We see
Russell again begging to go the bathroom and the unsub compiling by giving him a bucket to use. Throughout the episode it is incredibly creepy that the unsub video tapes every facet of what's happening to his victims.
The team arrives at the abandoned animal shelter and with
SWAT still a bit a ways,
Hotch makes the decision to send the team in in groups. Again
Morgan,
Reid and
JJ together while
Hotch,
Rossi and
Blake stay together.
At first I think that it might be
Hotch,
Rossi and
Blake who would find the unsub, but no, its
Morgan,
Reid and
JJ again. Although seeing
Russell get tased right before the team gets there, hurts, because I'm rooting for him to survive.
David using the taser on
Morgan, and
Morgan struggling to fight him off, is actually kind of refreshing; he's not Superman after all. Seeing
Reid however with gun in hand only to have him put it away and get punched down by unsub, making it necessary to have
Morgan hit the unsub with an old telephone from the desk was just silly. The unsub was armed, endangering another agent, so in my mind you just shoot him. This is not
Spencer 'Eastwood' we're talking about folks. He doesn't do step on bad guys, as a brutish FBI agent, very well at all.
The scene at the hospital with
Rossi and the woman's family, and then
Reid explaining to
Morgan and
JJ, that the victim has slipped into a coma and her death shouldn't be too much longer is sad. But
Russell thanking them for saving him was sweet and I just wanted to cheer for
Russell making it out alive.
Now my biggest problem with the episode comes at the end. I didn't like the whole, black man with a hoodie connotation at all.
Reid wearing those bad 80s running shorts again and the workout that
Morgan puts them through even though he could have gotten them waived from the fitness test was unnecessary 'cuteness', but I understand where the writers are coming from, they want to appeal to the younger campier viewers too. I have to admit,
Garcia and
Reid conspiring to kill
Morgan because they didn't have to go through all that as he admitted to getting them waived from the test already was pretty funny.
Reid's line “If I could raise my arms I'd hold him down for you” was hysterical combined with the 'if looks could kill' faces on him and
Garcia.
So to sum this all up.
The case was good. Unique and different. For the most part the team was excellent in their profiling with a special shout out to
Spencer Reid and his marvelously intuitive mind. The guest actors and actresses were spot on with their portrayals also. The directing and editing proved on
2
nd watching to be poignant and concise, leading the viewer to connect the dots as the team did.
What I didn't like about the episode, was again the overuse of
JJ, even though she was toned down, the overuse of
Morgan, and the disappearance of
Blake for nearly the entire episode. While I wish there would have been more
Hotch and
Rossi, their scenes were correct to their characters.
While I found the 'fluffy' of the fitness training campy for me it is out of place in a
Criminal Minds episode. But as I said earlier I understand the desire to appeal to viewers who like that sort of thing.
Overall I would give the episode a 5 out of 10.
Thank you
~~~~Mordred
