Criminal Minds

AJ Cook spoke with LA’s Daily News about the strike and Mandy Patinkin’s departure from the show.

In the beginning, it was very stressful because nobody really knew what was going on, but it’s been such a great transition. If ever there could be a great transition, this was it. Joe’s fabulous, he really does feel like he’s been there from the very beginning. He fits in so perfectly.

AJ seems like the type of person who is as nice as she appears. Hopefully, the writers and networks will reach a decision soon so we can see more of JJ’s evolution.
Ratings for the new season are just as high as they were for the previous two seasons with Patinkin. Another thing that AJ likes is the way her character, JJ, is changing.

I like that J.J. has seriously evolved. She went from being a couple of lines per episode to really coming into her own. I love it whenever she gets to pull her gun out - that’s exciting for me. Or when I get to put the FBI vest on and storm a building with everyone else. It’s a lot of fun. She’s badass now, I like it.

She’s also an important part of the team - Hotch takes her advice very seriously. There are cases that he agrees to investigate based on JJ’s say-so.

On the WGA strike:

We are entering into the great unknown here and I really feel for our crew. Many of them live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to have a five- or six-month strike. I support the writers and I understand; I just want it to be over quickly.

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.

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.

Sydney Morning Herald writer Gordon Farrer wrote a review of Criminal Minds in Sunday morning’s edition. His complaint with the show:
“Sometimes Criminal Minds asks too much of its audience.”

Mr. Farrer is not a disbeliever in criminal profiling, though.

Catching murderers through psychological profiling might look like modern criminological magic to the amateur but Sherlock Holmes was a master of that science more than a century ago.

His problem is the cast. He mentions two in particular that stretched audience’s imaginations to the breaking point. One, Thomas Gibson as Agent Aaron Hotchner. He can’t get past seeing Gibson as Greg on Dharma and Greg.

I see straitlaced Greg from the sitcom Dharma and Greg, and worry that his dippy hippie wife (Jenna Elfman) will burst in and bugger up a crime scene with her madcap Lucille Ball act.

Another character he takes exception with is now-gone Agent Gideon, played by Mandy Patinkin. His past characters also get in the way of the enjoyment of the show. He sees Inigo Montoya and Dr. Jeffrey Geiger instead of the BAU profiler.

Also mentioned is James Van Der Beek. How can sweet little Dawson have multiple personalities, kill innocent people, post the murder videos on the net, and torture a sweet little FBI agent? Farrer writes, “He [Van Der Beek] hasn’t been getting a lot of TV work since the series was canned, true, but surely that’s an overreaction.”

I thought this article was kind of funny - I liked that Gordon Farrer wrote what he thought and didn’t sugarcoat anything. Also, he brings up a point for which Criminal Minds is often criticized: the believability of the characters.
Spencer Reid, played by Matthew Gray Gubler, is one of those imagination-stretching characters. In an interview with Matt Romanada of Primetime Pulse, Matthew had this to say:

During the pilot…Chris [FBI agent and consultant] was there and I went to ask him something about what would my character do in real life. He looks at me and says, “There is nothing realistic about your character! You would never make it in the FBI. You would get made fun of. You would never exist. Heck, you couldn’t pass your gun test.”

He’s also way too young to have made it into the BAU. But, as Matthew said in that same interview, knowing his character wasn’t strictly realistic “gave me this freedom to do what I want.”

I think shows like Criminal Minds should be realistic enough to feel true and believeable and fantastic enough to be entertaining. Criminal Minds is a good blend.

The whole way through last night’s episode of Criminal Minds, I was on edge about what happened to the missing little girl, Katie Jacobs. The show was suspenseful - thanks in large part to atmospheric music and the presence of so many police officers and FBI agents in such a normal, everyday setting.
The show begins with a call to 911 from Katie’s aunt. Her parents are desperately trying to find her. Another little girl had been taken - and killed - from a mall the previous week.
As the story unfolds, we get more details about the family. Morgan and Prentiss went to Katie’s house to look around. They find that she’d wet the bed a lot and that she’d mutilated her barbie doll - Morgan thinks she was being molested. Through this, the focus narrows to the family. The little girl’s father, uncle, and cousin are questioned. The little boy, Jeremy, was the last to see Katie before she disappeared. He saw something but will not tell the BAU.
A big clue is the necklace belonging to Katie. It is found in a garbage can, it’d been ripped off of her. Hotch feels that her abduction was personal, full of rage. Not a stranger kidnapping, and not related to the other little girl’s case.
Katie had lied to her parents about where she got the necklace, leading the BAU to believe that her abductor had given it it her. They’re led to her uncle but don’t think that he took her. Prentiss remembers a few things that Katie’s aunt had said. One was that she’d worked in retail for years and years (she doesn’t mention that she’d work in this particular mall). The other was that at the time of Katie’s disappearance, she was getting a lighter engraved for her husband. Who had quit smoking.
Prentiss questions the aunt - she’d take Katie. She was jealous of the attention her husband was giving to Katie. When the little girl slept over at their house, she knew her husband was abusing her, yet did nothing. She’d taken Katie to get rid of her competition.
She doesn’t tell Prentiss where Katie is but the team and police find her in a closet with duct tape on her mouth. She is asthmatic - which could easily be fatal with a blocked airway. They can’t find a pulse. The paramedics are working on her as her parents look on. You keep seeing and hearing the heart monitor as she flatlines. Then suddenly, you hear the beeps and she has a pulse.
I was actually unsure about whether she’d live. In most shows, it’s almost a given that she’d be ok, but this was so tense. I really didn’t expect the heart monitor to pick up a heartbeat.
Katie’s aunt and uncle are arrested and led away, leaving their son by himself. They appeared unconcerned with him as he stands with Reid and Morgan.
At the end, Hotch goes to where Haley is staying (with a sister or friend, I’m assuming). He asks to see his son for just five minutes. She lets him in and he goes and looks at his sleeping child. This was very sad - I can understand why he wanted to see his son so much, and the fact that he had to go ask made it more painful.

“Seven Seconds” was Criminal Minds in top form.

Next week’s episode deals with a predator who taunts his victims by making missing fliers of them before they go missing. Joe Mantegna also makes his first appearance, and it looks like he and Hotch butt heads right away - there’s no I in TEAM, Joe.

Here’s a recap of last night’s episode, “Children of the Dark.” (CBS 9:00)

There has been a series of home invasions in Denver suburbs in which entire families are killed. The parents are tied up and beaten to death while the children watch. The children are then taken into their bedrooms and given a lethal injection, the killer’s idea of mercy.
Hotch and the team travel to Colorado to investigate. They conclude the two unsubs are working together. As they try to find the killing team, another family falls victim to them. This time, however, there is a survivor. A teenage girl is left alive by one of the killers (as it turns out, she reminded him of his sister). In the course of the investigation they figure out that the killers were in foster care, and through this are able to track one of them down. He refuses to tell them who his partner is, until the girl he left alive came in to talk to him. She is able to get him to talk. This is a sad scene because she reaches out to the man who killed her family, and then after is kind of disgusted by it.

Hotch and Prentiss go to talk to the foster mother who raised these two killers. As she talks with them, a young boy comes into the kitchen. He finds the refridgerator locked and asks for some milk. She will not give it to him - she wears the key around her neck.
The killers are killing parents who they see as abusive (even though they are not). They kill the children to spare them the horror of going into foster care. Gary, the other killer, shows up at a school. We see him talking to the young boy from the foster home and another little girl. He says he grew up where they live and offers them a ride. At the time, the team has learned who he is and who he is targeting. They follow him to a donut shop where he is inside with the boy. They figure that Gary plans to kill his former foster parents. He’s inside with the boy and Hotch talks him into coming out. Hotch thinks something is wrong because he gave up so easily. They then figure out that Gary gave the little boy a gun (they did not search the boy) so he could shoot the foster parents when he got back home.

Prentiss and Morgan drop the children off at the home and are in the car about to leave when they hear gunshots. Running inside, they find the boy with the gun. The foster mother is on the floor, unharmed. The boy didn’t shoot her, which gives hope that he won’t turn out like the killers.

This is a hard episode to summarize shortlly. It was a good one and very sad. It was hard for the agents to send the children back to that foster home, but they had no choice. There was no where else for the kids to go, and until an investigation by child services was concluded, they had to stay where they were. And it’s also sad because you can see that the killers were trying to help the children, in their very twisted way. This makes it no less painful for the surviving teenager, and in fact, probably makes it harder because her hatred is tempered by knowing they were so abused by the people who were supposed to take care of them.

“Children of the Dark” did not focus much on the characters’ lives - at one point Emily tells Hotch that she will take the teenager home with her. Hotch tells her he needs her to be objective, and she tells him that she needs to be human. On the plane home, JJ tells Emily that she would be a good mother. At the same time, Hotch is on the phone, asking someone to wake his son up so he can hear his voice. I’m assuming this is Haley, but they never said a word about her in this episode, so I don’t know what’s going on with that situation.

Also look for Joe Mantegna’s CM debut in two weeks - the team will be introduced to Agent David Rossi.

Last night, “Scared to Death” aired on CBS. This was Criminal Minds first Mandy-free episode, though his character was mentioned several times. When the show opens, Spencer is sitting at his desk rereading his letter. They quickly move on to other matters - a serial killer in Portland, Oregon. The team travels there to investigate and eventually figure out that the deaths had to do with phobias. From there, they need to figure out who is responsible. Through a lucky spotting of a flier in a laundromat, they are led to Dr. Howard (aka Dr. Goodman), in time to save his latest victim from being buried alive.

I really like Criminal Minds, I write a blog about it. But did anyone else think “Scared to Death” was kind of…boring?
The doctor was torturing these people, recording their responses, while having flashbacks to his mom making him sleep in the dark. Michael O’Keefe as Dr. Howard was kind of creepy, but it seemed like they crammed all of his motives into 45 minutes, and it didn’t quite work. It did cover all the bases; his abusive childhood, his naggy wife, his change in behavior, his treatment of his daughter. But it seemed like they hurried to put this all in so it’d make sense at the end.
Criminal Minds can be very creepy - like in “Revelations” or “North Mammon,” from season two. This one didn’t have the same feeling to it. It also felt like the characters were kind of wooden; they didn’t seem as dynamic as they usually are - with the exception of Spencer and Morgan getting stuck in the elevator…that was pretty funny.

What was interesting, though, was their response to Gideon leaving. Spencer is clearly upset. He talks to Emily at one point and says that Gideon confronted the most violent, dangerous criminals in the world. If he had enough courage to do that, why did he just leave a letter? Emily tells him to read it again and figure out why the letter was written to him. Out of all the people he left behind, why did he only bother to explain to Spencer?
Morgan also brings him up. On the flight home, he says that the team is doing just fine without Gideon.
Besides Gideon leaving, the only personal note was when Hotch tells Morgan that Haley has left, and he didn’t know if she was coming back.

“Scared to Death” was all right. It wasn’t one of their best episodes, but it was still entertaining. I’m looking forward to Joe Mantegna’s debut (on October 31 - Halloween) to bring some tension to the team and move some action along.

Hotch is gone, Prentiss is gone, Gideon is gone. The team goes to Milwaukee. Hotch comes back. Prentiss comes back. They arrest the serial killer using his son as bait. Gideon’s still gone. And Haley’s gone. Just a quick recap for “In Name and Blood.” This episode wrapped up some loose ends from last week and also gave us some new loose ends. Hotch and Prentiss are back with the team. Section Chief Erin Strauss travels with the team to Milwaukee to work the case. While there, she actually sees what the BAU does. She can’t do it. She insults the local detective, takes control when she shouldn’t, and then finally, breaks down at a crime scene when she steps on a victim’s hair. Having seen the reality of their job, she relents. Hotch is back but cannot move up in the chain of command. This is a big deal as he wanted to become FBI director.
Spencer worries about Gideon and finally goes to check on him at his cabin hide-away. Inside, he finds empty shelves and a gun, badge, and letter on Gideon’s desk. He tries to explain to Spencer why he’s leaving - not committing suicide as was implied last week. At the end, we see him traveling alone, trying to find hope again.
The new loose end - when Hotch gets back from Milwaukee, Haley is gone. Earlier in the episode, the phone rings. When Hotch picks up, the caller hangs up. Seconds later, Haley’s cell rings. She ignores it. When she leaves the room, she grabs her purse. Hmmmmm.

I thought this was a good episode - the big huge deal that was Mandy Patinkin’s leaving the show was quietly dealt with. The case the team was working on was interesting, and you can feel the itchy, tense feeling when they’re racing to find the unsub before his victim dies. Also interesting was that Hotch mentioned - fleetingly - that one of his team members has a possibly serious drug addiction. Hmmmmm again. Spencer seems to be functioning pretty well for someone addicted to heroin, but I guess I wouldn’t really know. Maybe this comes up in future episodes.

Tonight’s episode of Criminal Minds is “In Birth and Death.” Originally scheduled to the the season opener, it was pushed back to number two after “Doubt” was taken out of season two’s lineup and edited to fit in Mandy Patinkin’s departure.
“In Birth and Death” finds Hotch requesting a transfer and Prentiss resigning, presumably because of her refusal to help oust Hotch. Gideon is missing, and the three remaining team members have to investigate a serial killer in Milwaukee who abducts women in public places by using his son as bait. Sounds like a full episode. The mystery of how Gideon is going to leave the show will be solved - at the end of “Doubt,” he was finished writing a letter and was holding his gun. It looks like Spencer is going to be the one to go look for him, so we’ll have to see what happens.
“In Birth and Death” airs on CBS on Wednesday, October 3, at 9:00.

So that’s how they’re going to write Gideon off the show. Criminal Minds third season started off with Gideon alone in a cabin writing a letter to the one he knew would go looking for him - he is talking about the death of his friend Sarah and the case they worked on immediately after. That case, of course, is the killings of several women at a small college (which was held over from last season). As the flashback unfolds, Gideon sees his murdered friend in the crowd, watching him. The episode was entitled “Doubt,” and that is exactly what Gideon feels. He isn’t sure of himself anymore, in both his personal and professional life. As he writes the letter, he discusses this, as well as the horrors that he can no longer live with. At the end, he is holding a gun.
Meanwhile, the section chief, Erin Strauss, is out to get Hotch, and is extorting Prentiss to help her. The campus situtation is resolved when the killer is killed by a suicidal copycat, who then plunges a knife into her stomach. Strauss takes issue with Hotch’s handling of the case and suspends him.
So that’s where it’s left - the next episode, “In Birth and Death,” has Gideon missing, Hotch requesting a transfer, and Prentiss resigning. The remaining team members struggle to catch a serial killer in Milwaukee who abducts women from very public places.
I thought that the season premiere was excellent. It was exciting, and I liked how they wove Gideon’s eventual departure into the pre-existing show.
There is something wrong with the layout of this page - sorry. I couldn’t get into it last night to work on it. Of course, on the night of the premiere. I’m surprised my power didn’t go out or something. Anyway, I apologize and will see what I can do to get it fixed.

Friday, I posted a link to an article from Entertainment Weekly (ew.com) which said that Thomas Gibson’s character, Aaron Hotchner, would be leaving the show. I hope I made it clear that it was something I didn’t know was a fact. I just wanted to pass the information - or rumor - along. There’s always a lot of rumors flying around the entertainment industry, like whether Jorja Fox will return for the eighth season of tv’s most popular forensics show, CSI.
So is Hotch leaving? I haven’t found anything else that would suggest that, and because there are always rumors, I would expect to find something.
A commenter, Lociloco, wrote:

I think it is a fast one, I read that Hotch is “requesting” a transfer, but that doesn’t say he gets it or stays where he is going for very long. I have not seen any press except for this EW thing that you posted. It would be very strange if there wasn’t more notice of this if is official.

I definately agree.

Tonight’s episode is a rerun of “Legacy,” in which the BAU is called to Kansas City to investigate the disappearances of homeless people. Detective McGee from Kansas City approaches JJ for help because his own superiors do not believe the missing person cases are connected. McGee believes there may be as many as 63 victims. Hotch and JJ go to “unofficially” look into the case, while a prostitute named Maggie is fighting for her life.
Early in the show, Hotch walks into Gideon’s office to find him watching Charlie Chaplin movies - a little comic relief from the horrors of their job.

My favorite. Thomas Gibson plays Agent Aaron Hotchner on Criminal Minds. He started acting at age ten, went to Julliard, did theater, televison, movies. He played on CBS’s Chicago Hope and ABC’s Dharma and Greg

It’s very nice to do a little bit of the darkness after a little bit of the lightness. Variety is the spice of life. I enjoy both and hopefully I will be able to do as big a variety as I possibly can.

Here’s a little piece of the light:

And a little of the dark:

This clip is definately worth watching when Hotchner describes his team.

Since there are no new episodes for the entire (long) summer, I like to go around the internet looking for interviews to read. This interview with Thomas Gibson about his role on Criminal Minds dates back to April, but it’s definitely a good read if you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet.

At one point he describes Hotchner’s straight-laced demeanor:

It’s partly Hotch’s mentor status that influences his austere demeanor. “We do have our moments of levity. Unfortunately, he has a very, very, probably-dusty-it’s-so-dry sense of humor. It’s pretty dark. It’s pretty bone dry. We all need a little levity, but I wouldn’t necessarily look for him to break into song and dance,” Gibson explained.

True, but wouldn’t it be great to actually see him do a song and dance number for just a second?

Although we don’t have much back story to his character beyond the very basics, the article quotes one episode that sums up the constant stress that Hotch feels in the pull between his work and his family.

Hotchner: I catch killers, I save lives, I’m a hero until my key hits my front door, and then I’m just the father and the husband who is never there.
Gideon: Yeah, I got that one.
Hotchner: Here’s the thing: when I’m home, I’m in this silent panic because I know that I have to be as good as I can, as fast as I can. Because any minute the phone is going to ring and my time is up.

It’s a great article about a great character (and equally awesome actor), and definitely worth perusing while you too wait for the hiatus to end.

(Photo courtesy CBS/Nigel Parry)

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the season finale of Criminal Minds ever since it aired. What do they have in store for Emily Prentiss and Aaron Hotchner? It’s funny, you would think that a heart-stopping finale would include someone’s life hanging in the balance but apparently wondering what will happen to Hotch’s position can keep you up at night too (or maybe I just take my TV too seriously, that’s possible too).

Will Prentiss rat out any mistakes that Hotch makes in order to stay on the team? I have my doubts. I think she will probably keep quiet for awhile but then she’ll approach him to tell him what’s going on so that the team can figure out a way to save both their jobs. What would be the point of her becoming a full-fledged mole? If she does, the truth will inevitably come out and then she’ll have her job but she’ll be stuck on a team that hates her.

I’ve been watching closely for any hints of where Thomas Gibson’s contract is, but I haven’t heard anything that suggests he plans to leave by the end of next season so I’m really hoping that Hotch will not be leaving the BAU any time soon.

Any theories? I’d love to hear them!

(Photo source: Yahoo! TV)