Criminal Minds

I thought I’d write a little about Kirsten Vangsness today - I realized a lot of what is written about her has to do with her clothes (which are usually awesome!). But I found an article in The Daily Trojan, which is the newspaper of the University of Southern California, all about Kirsten aka Garcia.

It’s full of interesting little things, like Kirsten’s motivation to become an actress:

When I was growing up, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. Then I wanted to be a doctor, then a fireman, then a ballerina. So I just decided that I wanted to act like all those things (instead).

And would you believe she was shy?

When I was in high school I was really, really shy. I wouldn’t talk … so my mom said you can either take shop or you can take drama, and I did not want to take shop so I took drama. And, all of a sudden, I was good at something.

Kirsten was told by a casting director that she could never be an actress.

You’re not going to be an actor … you’re not fat enough to be the really fat girl, and you’re not thin enough to be the pretty (girl).

Hmm, I wonder what that lady is doing right now. Anyway, Kirsten had a bunch of jobs as she tried to make it in acting - substitute teacher, personal assistant, and she also worked at a group home for abused children.

When an opportunity came to audition for Criminal Minds, Kirsten faced some tough competition. There were over 300 other women trying out for the part, which was originally only going to last one episode. But, who can resist Garcia’s charm? Not the producers of CM, who decided to give her a recurring role. Now, she’s one of the main characters.

There is more to Kirsten than her clothes (even though they’re awesome). She managed to turn a guest starring role into a career, while making fans fall in love with her. Plus, the FBI really does like her character. She’s been told that she has a lot of fans in Quantico.

You can check out more of the article at the link above. Also, for more tv news, check out 451 Press.

About.com has an interview with Kirsten Vangsness, and I thought it’d be a good time to look at it because last week’s episode was all about Garcia.

Q: Before you became an actress, you had several interesting jobs (substitute teacher, grant writer), did any of these positions help prepare you for a career in acting?

Kirsten: “I used to be a substitute teacher for quite some time, I was in a group home, and then sometimes I was a teacher for long periods of time. If they didn’t have a teacher for a really rough class, I would be the teacher who would come in and teach them. Someone once told me there are two kinds of teachers: The kind who can get the kids to do anything they want by sheer intimidation and then there’s the kind that can get them to do anything they want because you don’t know what that person is going to do. I was that second kind. I’d walk in the kids would be like, ‘She just came in and she’s wearing shoes with kitty cats on them, purple-striped nylons and a Sex Pistol t-shirt.’ I just pulled out an apple, a grapefruit, a pan, 12 books out of my purse, 14 kinds of lip-gloss and they didn’t know what to make of me. There’s an element of almost being like right before school when you’re going to see these kids, you’re setting yourself up to be eaten alive and chewed up and spit out. There was that element, that quickening, meeting all those people coming from different worlds and creating in like 15 minutes, a community.”

Q: I understand you have very unusual shopping tastes, can you tell us what your favorite items to buy are?

Kirsten: “I like clothes that make me happy! They don’t arrive to me like they’re supposed to. I’ll get something and say to myself, I know this is brand new, but I’m going to cut the neck off, I’m going to slice the side up and sew a different piece of fabric in there. When I was a child, my mother would give me and my sister like $15 apiece, put us into goodwill and tell us to go get our school clothes. If that meant you spent the whole $15 on a pimp daddy fake fur coat, that was your school clothes, which I did do one year. When I was in first grade, I got this fantastic fake fur coat that I wore every day, when it was 80 degrees. Right now, I’m on a crinoline kick, I have way more crinolines that any human being should have.”
To read the entire interview, go to about.com.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday - it’s one of the only times I get to see my whole family. (Except for my brother - Happy Thanksgiving), so I love it.

Also, one of my favorite tv sites, Buddy TV, has some details on upcoming CM episode, “Birthright.” Birthright is expected to air on December 12 at nine. Sounds interesting…I guess you can inherit anything from your parents.

Anyway, on to our “Penelope” recap…

Good episode. This one was the best of the season, and the most exciting one since Reid was kidnapped. We got to learn a bit more about Penelope - losing her parents, how she was recruited by the FBI. It’ll be interesting to see if this episode did as well as last week’s, which topped Private Practice in the ratings for the first time.

At the beginning of the episode, she’s weaving in and out of consciousness. As the BAU, sans Morgan, gather at the hospital, Hotch tells Rossi that the EMT said it didn’t look good. Morgan is in church and isn’t answering his phone.
Pretty early in the episode, we find out that Garcia is going to be ok. But no one knows what happened. She tells them that her date shot her and that she should’ve listened to Morgan. The team is told not to investigate the case because Garcia has been suspended. She encrypted a program with the team’s info, and the internal affairs unit is investigating this. It comes out that she was hired by the FBI because she was a dangerous hacker. They wanted her on their side.
Morgan takes Penelope home from the hospital and stays with her. They patch up their friendship, which is a sweet scene. While he’s there, though, he’s awakened by gunshots. The officer guarding the door is shot by Penelope’s attacker. Morgan chases him but isn’t able to get him.
After this, the team gathers at Garcia’s house. They aren’t getting anywhere, and all of a sudden, David Rossi starts yelling at Garcia. Telling her to spit it out, what does she know, what was she working on. Morgan is telling him to stop, but he continues, while Garcia looks scared. Finally, she tells them that she counsels victims’ families. Sometimes she is asked how cases are going. So she’d flagged a few so the lead detetective would know the FBI considered them priorities. She doesn’t have authority to do this, which is why she didn’t want to tell them. But it provides the vital clue.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Brendan appears to try and crack Garcia’s system. It’s very cute when he’s in her office and she’s at home. They’ve never seen each other, but they are almost flirting as they try to beat each other into the system. (I really liked his character. He looked like he rolled out of bed, took a shower the day or so before, threw on some clothes that were on his floor, and left. Not like he was trying to look like he didn’t care, but really didn’t.)
Anyway, it turns out that a few cases Garcia flagged involved the same deputy sheriff - who is none other than her date.
So, he’s in the BAU, being questioned by internal affairs (they don’t know yet he did it). The computer tech (whose name I’ve honestly forgotten) and Garcia communicate with each other and he’s sending her video of the BAU. They see the deputy and call Hotch, who is there. The deputy starts getting suspicious. The team calls JJ, who is in her office. They tell her what’s going on, and she is able to get behind the attacker, who is holding the internal affairs guy hostage. She shoots through a window, getting the guy right in the head. It was an amazing shot, especially from JJ (who for some reason I didn’t expect to be able to shoot like that).
Anyway, at the end, Garcia meets the tech. She tells JJ that everything happens for a reason. So the two computer techies are gazing into each other’s eyes, impressed by the other’s abilities. It’s very cute and sweet.

I really liked this episode. I liked how Rossi went at Garcia. He knew it was the only way to get the information and that he was the only one who could do it because he was the one without all the ties to her. It was also nice to see how much Garcia means to the team. She’s so different from the rest of them, but also so important to the team and to their lives.
I wonder if Nicholas Brendan will appear in any more episodes…they’d make a cute couple.

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.

I’ve read again and again that Criminal Minds is the darkest crime show on tv, that it’s extreme with its creepy villains and crimes. Honestly, I never really saw that it was so much more terrible than other shows, CSI for example. One particular episode of CSI that was especially memorable to me was when an older lady died and her cats became hungry. Not a pretty picture (and yes, they showed the picture).
I don’t know if I’m a product of over-exposure to crime shows and violent images, but the show didn’t really seem outrageously over the top.

Last night, I had a different perspective. Jamie Kennedy played Floyd Feylinn Ferell, a former mental patient who took a large bite of his baby sister when he was seven. He seemed pleased with himself when he’s being interrogated by Morgan with Fr. Marks. When he reveals that he’d fed one of his victims to search volunteers, he looks like he made a joke and is happy with the reaction.

With all the violent shows, movies, and videogames, I don’t know why this was especially vivid to me. It disgusted me, and I could begin to see why Criminal Minds was said to be more dark than other shows. On other crime procedurals, there is almost a light tone as the officers and detectives go about their business. Sometimes they are affected by their cases, but the tone is very different. Criminal Minds is always dark. Even when they’re joking around, there is an underlying tension and pervasive unease. Garcia provides a break from all this with all her color and charm, but even she is affected by what she sees.

The reason why I’m writing about this is that a reader commented that she won’t be watching the show anymore. A little aside: I really value the comments that people make. I appreciate the time they take, and I take respect everyone’s opinion. I just wanted to say that so the person who wrote the comment doesn’t feel singled out. Anyway, she said that the show had taken a morbid turn. There were images that she didn’t want her children to see. This is a person who has watched CM from the first episode.
It’s ironic that I’d just been thinking of the disgusting image of the volunteers eating the victim, and this reader made the comment.

Has Criminal Minds taken a turn for the worse as it gets more and more graphic? Is the tone of season three more foreboding than the previous two? I really don’t know. I do feel like something is different this season - besides the obvious cast change.
Is there another change in the characters? Are the shows gruesome, but at the same time predictable? What do you think of the cases and profiles that are being shown?

This was an interesting and welcome comment, so I thank the reader who wrote it. When I watched “Scared to Death,” I felt like it was a step backwards for the show. It seemed rushed and not fully developed. With “Seven Seconds,” I feel like the show was back in top form. There was a lot of family dynamics and relationships to investigate, and there was the suspense of finding the girl - and even whether she was still alive. I did enjoy “Lucky,” though I found it to be repulsive. But I think that being repulsive is what seperates CM from other shows. These aren’t average, ordinary killers (if there is such a thing). They are depraved. I have to admit that is why I watched the show in the first place. The crimes are different, the atmosphere is different. Some episodes are like mini horror movies.
The humanity is supposed to come from the profilers - their reactions and interactions. I don’t know why other people watch Criminal Minds and other crime procedurals, but I’m willing to guess that a lot of people are drawn to the sick and depraved cases. It’s fascinating to us.

I certainly understand, though, why this reader will not be watching the show anymore. Maybe there comes a point when you can’t absorb so much sickness and ugliness. What do you think?

To read some reviews of CM from back when it premiered, check out Metacritic.

Criminal Minds was in top form for Wednesday night’s episode, “Lucky.”

The show opens with bubbly, happy, smiling Penelope Garcia. She meets a guy at a coffee shop, fixes his computer, and gives him her number. She tells Morgan, and says she’s not the type to get hit on from across the room, and that it usually takes men longer to realize how wonderful she is. Morgan tells her to go with her gut, which she does. She throws his number away. But then, as she is talking to Morgan, she gets mad when he implies (or seems to) that there must be something wrong with the guy if he asked her out. So of course she sets up a date.

The case the team is investigating is particularly gruesome. The victims have pentacles carved into their chests, their legs are missing, and one had partially digested fingers in her stomach. The crimes take place in a small Florida town, and it revolves around the church. After the team deduces that the unsub is a former mental patient, they find the hospital where he was likely a patient. They find out that he bit a chunk out of his nine-month old sister when he was seven. Luckily, they also found out his name. From there, it was easy to trace him - he didn’t use an alias or try to hide. The last victim is saved, but one woman is still missing.
Morgan interrogates the unsub, who wants to talk to the parish priest. The priest tells the unsub that he is not alone, God is a part of him. To which the unsub replies, “And Tracy is a part of us too.”

The gruesome part: he signed up to help with the search party. His job was to feed the other volunteers. There are flashbacks of him ladling out soup to people in the community. This was so disgusting to me - they’re eating the person they’re trying to find.

On the personal side, Morgan is struggling with his faith. He lost faith in God when he was a child and was being abused. God did nothing, Morgan says. At the end of the episode, he is praying in church.

And Garcia’s date…at the end, James says, “Garcia, I’ve been thinking of doing this all day.” Hmmm…first date kiss? No, he takes out a gun and shoots her in the chest.

This was a great episode - very dramatic and creepy. Not only was the case interesting, the characters were developed further. We got to see more of Penelope - her interaction with Morgan when she gets mad at him lets us see a different side of her. Her character shows a lot of personality, but we don’t know a lot about her personal life. This will change in the upcoming episode when the investigation into her shooting takes place.

The third season started off well with “Doubt.” I was less impressed with “Scared to Death,” but the subsequent episodes have been exciting and entertaining. Next week’s offering, “Penelope,” continues the story and leads the team to suspect that the attacker is someone close to the investigation.

If you want to read a bit more about the WGA strike, Buddy TV has a new article, with thoughts from AJ Cook, CM exec producer Edward Bernero, and CM writer Andrew Wilder.

Tonight on Criminal Minds, the team tracks down a serial killer, played by Jamie Kennedy. This cannabal causes Morgan to doubt his faith. Also, Garcia goes on a date, and the relationship is not off to a good start.
If you want to know what happens, click here. Otherwise, we’ll see on Wednesday!
With the writers strike unresolved, this is one of the last new episodes. Next week, Nicholas Brendan will guest star as a computer tech hired to crack Garcia’s unique system.
To find out what else Criminal Minds has in store, check out TV.com’s episode guide.

Kirsten Vangsness plays Penelope Garcia, the keeper of all knowledge for the BAU. Her character is the antithesis of a typical FBI agent. She has an eclectic sense of style - everything from her clothes to her hair to her pens shows her personality. She’s a little sunshine for the BAU team.

In an interview with Matt Romanada from Inside Pulse, Romanado asks Kirsten if she had ever met an FBI agent through her work on the show.
Kirsten, having met two, replied:

Yeah the other guy is awesome. But yeah people would always say that my character wasn’t realistic. Then one day I get this note on my desk saying “We appreciate you.” And then one of the profilers came up to me and said, “I want you to know there is a whole basement of people like you at the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) and they worship you.”

It’s interesting out of all the characters on Criminal Minds, there is a basement full of Garcias.
Here’s a little Youtube of Garcia working her magic on the computers and phones, as well as her teammates. All the while with a smile.

I watched NCIS for the first time in a long time recently and noticed a character - also quirky and weird. Abby Sciuto, played by Pauley Perrette, is a forensics specialist. Like Garcia, her character is a direct contrast to the investigators around her. And like Kirsten Vangsness, Pauley Perrette writes a blog on CBS.com.

Even though NCIS has been on longer than Criminal Minds, I feel like Garcia is the more original character. She seems more natural in her quirkiness. You know how some people are just weird? That’s just who they are and who they act. Then there are other people who like to think they’re original and eccentric and have to really try. It does not come naturally. Abby seems to be one of those people that have to try - who knows…she could be a whacko in real life, but she just comes off as trying to hard to be different.
Criminal Minds was definately lucky to find Kirsten Vangsness. She’s definately the queen of all knowledge and of all weirdness. For some spoilers regarding Garcia, click here.

If you want some good Criminal Minds spoilers, check out Buddy TV. If you don’t want to know anything until you see it, don’t read any further.
Later in the season, Garcia is in a diner and helps someone unfreeze his laptop. They go on a date, which apparently doesn’t go well. He shoots her. Yes, that’s right, he shoots Garcia. He leaves her and that’s where the episode ends.
In the next episode, emergency teams try to save her, as we see flashbacks to different points in her life. (In two, she’s a child with her parents. In another, she is at a funeral with two caskets, which may be her parents.)
No, no more stars are leaving the show, so Penelope lives.
Nicholas Brendan -aka Zander from Buffy - will play Kevin, who the team hires to help crack Garcia’s system. They hope that something she was working on will give them a clue to her shooting. He finds something “shocking” and drama ensues. At the end, a possible love match between the two techies is hinted at. Nicholas Brendan will appear on the one episode definately and may appear more if his character is well-received by viewers.

Sounds exciting. This show keeps the surprises coming. Garcia goes on her date November 14, and Nicholas Brendan makes his CM debut on November 21.

Kirsten Vangness is the brainy, zany Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds. Her character often wears some interesting outfits.

On StarNewsOnline, she says of her character:

We dress very similarly but if you look closely, she wears designer labels. She doesn’t have holes in her clothes. She doesn’t have soup stains on anything. She knows about a new invention that just came out called an iron. These are things that I don’t subscribe to. She actually looks good all the time.

And she does look good. But…

What was she thinking?
She goes from polished, beautiful Kirsten:

to this:
I’m not quite sure what to say about this one. I’m trying to be the type of person who doesn’t judge other people, especially based on something so shallow as clothing. But…whoa. I don’t know what’s going on with this outfit. It’s just wrong!
Whatever she’s wearing though, Kirsten Vangness is a talented actress, and Penelope Garcia adds a nice contrast to the serious BAU profilers.

In 1973, only 24 out of 8,767 FBI agents were women. In 2007 there are 30,646 agents, 13,692 of whom are women. The percentage is smaller in the BAU, but on Criminal Minds, women are well represented by Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster), JJ (AJ Cook), and Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness). These agents each bring unique skills to the team, without which they wouldn’t be as successful.
I found this clip on YouTube of the ladies hanging out at a bar together. Before their night gets interupted by work, they have a little fun with a man who claims to be an FBI agent. The scene is actually based on a real event - an FBI agent that Paget Brewster got to know through the show had this happen to her.

It’s so hard to pick a favorite character on Criminal Minds. I love every single one of them for one reason or another and the actors have developed them so well.

However, if I was forced to pick just one character, I might be inclined to pick Penelope Garcia as my favorite. I love Kirsten Vangsness as an actress, and I love Garcia as a character and as a rle model. What makes Garcia such a role model?

She’s not a stick figure. If you look at the most common body shape in Hollywood, it’s a sea of skinny actresses. Kirsten Vangsness is certainly not what I would call a fat woman, but she’s definitely bigger than your average starlet. And you know what? I love it. She looks like a real person, and she’s beautiful - and she’s not going to contribute to young girls having eating disorders.

She’s bringing sexy back - sexy brains, that is. All the women on the show are intelligent, of course. One would hope there wouldn’t be any idiots working with the BAU, but Garcia is geeky smart. She can find anything on anyone if it exists, she can hack into computer systems, and she doesn’t apologize for her knowledge. She plays RPGs and knows about viral videos. She can probably hook up a network with her eyes closed. As someone who lives and dies by the world of blogging (well, sort of), I can appreciate geek intelligence.

She’s flirty with style. One of my favorite things in any given episode is the banter between Garcia and Morgan. The pet names - Sugar, Mon Amour, Baby - are ridiculously cute intervals in between the darker plot lines. The sparks of sexual tension - such as when she teased Morgan about having Photoshopped images of him wearing nothing but chaps - make you almost wish something would happen between them. The lustful drooling in “The Big Game” when Morgan was dancing - “He’s like a CAT” - is just one more aspect of realism that she brings to the show.

She’s funny. Nothing beats the way Garcia answers her phone calls. Who can forget one of my favorites:

Garcia: You’ve got a problem. Deadbolt’s the number one password crack-resistant software out there. You’re gonna have to get inside this guy’s head to get the password.
Morgan: I thought I was calling the office of Supreme Genius.
Garcia: Well, gorgeous, you’ve been re-routed to the office of Too Frickin’ Bad.

I only have one complaint about Garcia - compared to the rest of the team, she just doesn’t get enough screen time!

(Photo source)