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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

AJ Cook talks about how the show will introduce Joe Mantegna’s new character, while at the same time explaining Agent Gideon’s (Mandy Patinkin) departure.

The writers are locked in a room somewhere trying to find out who this new character is and how to bring him on. It’ll be interesting to see how that changes the dynamic on the set and on screen…Last season [Agent Gideon's] girlfriend was killed and he was on the run trying to find the killer, so luckily they had that, to set up his departure…They’ve left us all in the dark here. All I know is we’re looking for him … We’re trying to figure out where he is and hunt the man down. What’s so funny is, it’s kind of art imitating life. In our read-through, we had lines in there that seemed to be pulled out of our lives — ‘Has anyone seen Gideon — or Mandy?’

Cooks said she’d be “shocked” if they killed off Mandy Patinkin’s character.
Shemar Moore expressed anger at Patinkin for leaving the show without any word to his costars, feeling they were “slapped in the face.”

I don’t like that he did this the way he did this. I don’t think it’s right. He left us hanging… no warning, no nothing. We all showed up to work on Day 1, and he didn’t.

Thomas Gibson was also disappointed: “We look at this as a great opportunity to shake things up. This is certainly a disappointment to everyone, but I don’t think it’s a catastrophe.”
AJ recently said of Patinkin:

We have been kind of playing phone tag, but he has gone out of his way to make sure he reached all of us. I think that was the biggest part for us … We just didn’t know what was going on, and we were all worried. Once we got into contact with him and knew he was OK, then it was we just want him to be happy. (National Ledger)

As to Mandy Patinkin’s final appearance on Criminal Minds: He shot one day of scenes that will be stretched out into two episodes. TV Guide reports that he will be in the scene alone because none of the other stars wanted to work with him again after he left without telling them. “What’s more, Minds’ producers were forced to use a special crew to shoot the pariah’s scene because the show’s regular staff refused to be on set with him.”
Apparently, the scene will show Agent Gideon getting into a car and driving away, and which, according to TV Guide, will air on October 3.

(Look for more on AJ Cook tomorrow.)

Welcome to this brand new Criminal Minds fan site. I am an avid (perhaps rabid) fan of the show and have become a little too obsessive about it - so what better than an opportunity to write here and update you as well?

I’m so disappointed that the season is already over. It was certainly a wild way to end it, and it left some huge questions for next season - will Hotch get booted out of the BAU even though we all know he is the only one who could lead the team as well as he does? Will Prentiss be a mole or will she trust in Hotch and tell him what’s going on? What is in store for this great team? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, thank goodness for syndication and summer reruns, it may be the only way I can survive the next several months without my favorite show!