Criminal Minds

Even with a rerun, Criminal Minds won its Wednesday night timeslot. CBS won the night overall as well. “Clash of the Choirs” and “Duel” didn’t make huge waves, but they did about as well as they had for the previous airings Monday and Tuesday.

CM reaired “About Face.” This was a good episode, and seeing it again was cool because it was the first time Joe Mantegna made his appearance as David Rossi. At the end of the episode, he and Hotch have a little difference of opinion - Hotch says that they are a team, they think individually but share. Rossi refers to “group think.” Anyway, there was a definate need for adjustment. When Rossi started, they worked solo. They didn’t have all the support -no Garcias, no computers, no jet - so it is a big switch for old-school Rossi. In subsequent episodes, Rossi does take charge on occasion (like when he was interrogating Penelope about who shot her), but he hasn’t really overstepped the team’s boundries.

The story of “About Face” was pretty good. I liked the twist with the second victim, Enid, going missing. She actually bought a gun and is in hiding because the first victim reported seeing the missing fliers and no one helped her. But the killer finds her anyway. It was a rough first day on the job for Rossi - he has to shoot the suspect in the end, but he ends up saving Morgan.

The team dynamics are definately interesting with Rossi instead of Gideon. He gives the show an entirely different tone. Hopefully next week, we’ll see the new episode “3rd Life.” The last new one for a while, so it better be good!

I’m sad there is only one new episode of Criminal Minds. Shows like “Birthright” remind me how exciting and interesting the show is. The story involved missing and murdered young women in Virginia. As the team investigates, they find a victim of a similar crime that had happened 27 years ago. There was a series of killings in 1980, and this woman is the only survivor. She says she can’t help when the profilers come to talk to her, but she doesn’t appear frightened that the killer could be back. This leads them to believe the killer is dead, and they are led to his sons. They find out that the victim had become pregnant by her captor and had the child. They suspect him and go to talk to him. He knew about his father, but he cared so much about his mother that he never told her he knew - he played along with her lie.
The killer also had a son by his wife, who becomes the prime suspect. He doesn’t show up for work, and the BAU goes to his house.
There, they find a pregnant wife and a barn. As they search the barn, they find signs that he’d been torturing women there, but not holding them there. Now they need to figure out where the women are being held. They bring the only survivor of the 1980 crimes to the scene, hoping she can help in some way. She sees her captor’s wife and starts yelling at her…why didnt’s she stop him? Why didn’t she help her? She must have known what’s going on. The wife becomes so upset that she blurts out that she killed him. This kind of takes everyone aback. She said she came home - while pregnant, by the way - and saw all the blood. She figured out what was going on and killed her husband so he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. She didn’t want her son to know that his father was a murderer. But he does find out and continues his father’s legacy.
The surviving victim remembers walking to the barn, a long walk, uphill, with boulders along the way. The wife then remembers a piece of property that fits the description, and the team is led to the women. But not the killer.
Meanwhile, the killer’s pregnant wife goes to a spot where she knows he goes to be alone. She confronts him, and as the BAU is rushing to find him, they hear a shot. When they come to the scene, the killer is laying on the ground. His wife says that he came after her and she had to shoot him. She looks at the first killer’s wife, and it’s understood that that wasn’t exactly the case. She killed him for the same reasons his mother had killed his father.
It was perfectly symmetrical, and you kind of wonder what this unborn baby is going to turn out like.

Anyway, it was an interesting episode, and the story was entertaining. JJ gets a little more focus in “Birthright.” She is extremely bothered by this case. Hotch points out to her that the victims of crimes they investigate tend to be around her age. She identifies with them, and is wondering if she can stop caring so it’d be easier.
We also discover the mystery of the bracelet Rossi carries. He’s talking to the sheriff who investigated the 1980 crimes. This guy was haunted by the case, he knew every detail, but he couldn’t solve it back then. Rossi tells him that he carries this bracelet because he had a case where three children watched their parents get beaten to death on Christmas Eve. He promised them that he’d find their killer, but he need succeeded. This has bothered him for 21 years. And he notes, that every Christmas Eve, he calls to tell the children that he hasn’t forgotten and will find the killer. Last year, none of them bothered to return his call.
I liked how they used the former sheriff as a way for Rossi to tell his story. At the end, the former sheriff tells Rossi not to let it get to 22 - meaning not to let another year go by with his haunting case hanging over his head.
Hotch is also served with divorce papers at the end of the episode.

I’m a little late putting this up. I really forgot it was Wednesday. My week is a little messed up so hopefully I’ll remember to watch Criminal Minds.
Tonight at nine is the continuation of last week’s episode, “Lucky.” “Penelope” will pick up where we left off - Garcia’s date just shot her. The rest of the team is working on finding her killer and wondering if it’s related to her work (awfully coincidental that this guy was in the coffee shop she always goes to and just happens to have a computer problem). Nicholas Brendan, of Buffy the Vampire fame, guest stars as a computer tech who is hired to try to interpret Garcia’s computer system and see if anything she was working on yields some clues.
Sounds good - I’ll definately remember to watch this one. I think it’ll be interesting to see the interactions of the rest of the team and how David Rossi fits into this. It’s an us vs. them type of situation, so we’ll see if he’s an us or a them.

Last night marked Joe Mantegna’s second episode with Criminal Minds. A funny part of the episode had Emily, Spencer, and Morgan looking through his office and profiling him. Of course he walks in. Emily and Spencer were properly embarrassed, but Morgan just looked annoyed. He is not accepting of David Rossi at all.
So the action of the episode revolved around a former militia member in Colorado, Francis Goehring. He was being pursued by the police when he blew himself up, taking a police officer with him. He’d kidnapped four women, the fourth only a half hour or so before he killed himself. Goehring’s ex-wife leads them to her parent’s land, where the women’s bodies were found. Rossi discovers that the last woman had been killed only a short time ago, and couldn’t have been killed by Goehring.

As they search for his partner, they find several clues as to his personality. He is a submissive partner, he tried to please Francis Goehring, and he was also in love with him. His identity was so wrapped up in Francis that when he killed himself, he took on Goehring’s personality - or tried to. The partner, Henry, kidnaps a woman from a gas station and is preparing to kill her. The team and sheriff find the location (Spencer had been working on a geographical profile all episode). A sniper is the only way that they’ll be able to save the woman. The best sniper they have is not even a cop. He’s the leader of the local militia, which Morgan objects to strongly (because they had a little run in at this guy’s bar). Anyway, the sniper kills Henry, and the woman is saved.
There’s a lot of back story that played into the events also. Brought up numerous times was Ruby Ridge and the surprise that Montana authorities actually asked for the FBI’s help. I thought it was interesting how the show brought up actual events, and especially events in which the FBI is shown in a poor light. It comes out that Rossi was at Ruby Ridge -and doesn’t want to talk about it.
At the tail end of the episode, Morgan and Rossi are talking and Morgan asks him why he came back, which he’d been suspicious of for a while. Rossi just said “Unfinished business,” and walked away.

This scene bothered me a bit, and I’ve been trying to find a word that fit it since last night. The best I can come up with is cheesy. Or maybe melodramatic. We get that Rossi has unfinished business and is tortured by some case that was unresolved. I think it doesn’t really need to be said anymore - we know. It’s much more dramatic and mysterious if very little is said about it, but it comes up very frequently. I don’t know if anything needed to be said at all - a former FBI agent has a lucrative career as a writer and lecturer and he gives it up to come back as a subordinate in the BAU. Last week, he kept touching the bracelet with the children’s names. We get it. We don’t need anymore hints that he has a troubling secret.

That was just one part that I thought could’ve been better, but otherwise, I liked the episode. It was dramatic, and I liked the local characters. When Henry is kidnapping the last woman in front of a gas station, the woman who was working there ran inside when she saw what was happening. I assumed that she went to call 911, but she came out with a shotgun. I also liked how they were able to get the militia to help them. Militia hate the FBI, the government. Rossi told them it wasn’t about them, it was about this woman from their community who was missing and in danger. This made the militia members seem human, which is not always done on tv or movies. They’re caring people, they just don’t care for the government.

Next week’s episode is going to be a good one - this one features Penelope. It’ll be good to have her get her own show!

Note: I feel like I’ve talked about the strike a lot, so today I’ll just give you links to two good articles that talk about the impact on your favorite shows.
This one from the San Jose Mercury News talks about new and returning shows and what potential schedules could look like. This one from Seat 42F will tell you how many scripts are prepared for your favorite shows.

If you missed last week’s episode, which heralded Joe Mantegna’s arrival, here’s a clip. In it, he is talking to Erin Strauss (the big boss) - she can’t understand why he came back. He helped start the BAU, and now he’s coming back to work under Hotch. This, as it turns out, appears to be hard for him. He takes over and leaks important information on a case to the media without consulting the rest of the team.

Youtube is a very dangerous place - I was looking for one video, and I got sucked into watching a bunch. Couldn’t resist this one. What better combo than Weird Al and Spencer Reid.

A lot of people must have been celebrating Halloween last night. TV ratings for everyone fell. Private Practice was the evening’s top show among the 18-49 crowd, but it had its lowest ratings ever. Criminal Minds tied its lowest ratings of the season last night.
CSI:NY had a better night, winning the ten o’clock timeslot. CBS had the highest ratings of the networks.

And speaking of last night’s Criminal Minds, Film.com has a review of “About Face” and Joe Mantegna’s long-anticipated arrival. This excerpt is taken from Film.com:

Last night’s case — which was about a man who leaves “Have You Seen Me?” flyers and then kidnaps the woman shown on them — wasn’t especially involving. The main purpose of the episode was setting up Rossi’s relationship to the rest of the crew. While technically serving underneath Thomas Gibson’s Hotchner, Rossi primarily followed his own hunches and seemed uncomfortable with the collegial nature of the BAU. Right now it seems like an ill fit, especially the disconnect between Mantegna’s new role as the show’s titular star and his subordinate role on the team.

What do you think - Is David Rossi - or Joe Mantegna - an ill fit for Criminal Minds?
For this week anyway, the ratings aren’t really an indication. They were low for everyone, so we’ll see what next week brings.
Scroll down for a poll on David Rossi and cast your vote. So far it looks like we miss Gideon.

David Rossi made his first appearance in the BAU last night - and it was pretty quiet. He didn’t come in and take over, he didn’t act like he was superior because he’d created the BAU. At first. Later in the episode he leaks some information to the press without Hotch’s consent - now he pulls out his experience and tries to tell Hotch he knows what he’s doing. If you missed “About Face,” TV.com has a detailed recap (TV.com is the place to go if you miss an episode of anything - their summaries are really exhaustive).
There’s a back story with Rossi - he carries a bracelet with three children’s names on it, and throughout the episode, he had flashbacks. Section Chief Strauss thinks he has an ulterior motive for rejoining the BAU, and she’s right. The story will continue to unfold throughout more episodes, but Rossi obviously has some unfinished business.

How did you like Joe Mantegna as David Rossi? I liked him -especially how his character contrasts to Gideon. He’s very cool and collected.

P.S. If you’re a Tom Green fan, stop over at Sarah Lee’s Watching Tom Green for a cool contest. Great prizes and EASY to win. Hurry over.

I’m very excited - this is the first time I get to take my daughter trick-or-treating. I thought she was too young last year, so we handed out candy. She loved seeing all the costumes, which made me feel like the worst mother for not dressing her up. So this year, I asked her what she wanted to be, and she said a “friendly dragon.” Very cute.

Anyway, I’m also excited because tonight is Joe Mantegna’s first episode of Criminal Minds. In “About Face,” Agent David Rossi makes his first appearance. The story is about an unsub who taunts his victims by making missing posters of them before abducting and killing them.
Rossi is a veteren FBI agent who helped establish the BAU. He went on to lecture and write.
Joe Mantegna says of his character:

This is a guy who’s financially solid, so some of the mystery is the underlying reason he’s coming back. He explains it initially as just wanting to help, which is fine, but we may find out there are other motivations as well.

He’s also happy with the show’s writing.

They are spending a little more time getting into the personalities and stories of the individual members of the team. I’ve really liked the stuff they’ve done with Shemar Moore’s character, in terms of his having gone through abuse as a child, and Thomas Gibson’s character has had domestic problems. The writing staff is really dedicated, and for me, that’s where it starts.

One suggestion Joe had was to make his character Italinian-American. Known for his roles in Mafia-related movies (The Last Don, The Godfather III), he says, “I have no qualms about playing [mobsters], but given the opportunity to show it’s just as common for an Italian-American to be the cop as to be the robber, I’ll make that choice.”

The Chicago Tribune has an interesting article about Joe Mantegna and Criminal Minds today. Check it out.
Also, Erinn at Parenting Children has some tips for a good trick-or-treating experience tonight.

In a recent interview with the NY Daily News, Joe Mantegna spoke of his arrival on the set of Criminal Minds.

All I can do is just be who I am and just be myself. It needn’t complicate the rest of the cast’s lives any more than it has to because, obviously, there must have been some complications that needed an adjustment. I just felt that I’m there to do my best and fit in.

And of his character vs. Jason Gideon:

I use a sports analogue. Like if a baseball team traded a batter and brought in a new guy, it’s a totally different guy, but he’s still doing the same job batting at a certain number in the lineup. Hopefully, the audience will find that interesting and exciting, and we hope the show will continue to be the success that it is.

And Mantegna feels right at home on his new set. About 50% of the CM crew came from his previous CBS show, Joan of Arcadia.

It’s kind of ironic for me because the day ‘Joan of Arcadia’ finally got word that we weren’t being picked up, I went up to the office to clear out my trailer and I remember they were packing up all these boxes and they all had ‘Criminal Minds’ written on the side. Our two producers at the time both went to ‘Criminal Minds,’ they were the original show-runners there, and they took a big portion of the crew with them, so when I came to the first day [on 'Minds'], it was unbelievable.

Joe Mantegna’s begins his role as David Rossi October 31 at nine on CBS.