Criminal Minds

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!

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.

Paget Brewster seems so FBI-ish on Criminal Minds that it’s surprising to me that she is also known for her comedic roles. She lent her voice to American Dad, she was on Friends and The Trouble with Normal.
On Criminal Minds, Paget plays the straight-laced Emily Prentiss. In reality, she differs a little from her character.

In an interview with UnderGround Online, she responds to a question about Hugh Heffner asking her to pose for Playboy.

UGO: I caught you on the Conan O’Brien show a few weeks back. Are you going to take Hugh Heffner up on his offer [to pose in Playboy]?

PAGET: At first, I was like, “I’m not going to do it.” Then I talked about it on Conan and I was like, “God, I do kind of want to do it,” but I can’t do it. You know what I mean? I kind of wanted to, but I don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair. I think the re-touching would be great, and there is something kind of thrilling, dangerous and sexy, and cheesy about being naked in a magazine, but I do actually admire Playboy more than I do Maxim or FHM. When girls do that, all the power to them, have a great time, get all oiled up and put on some lingerie and get your picture taken. But I think if you’re going to do it, really do it. Go to the all-American institution and really damn well do it. But the manager, the agents, the lawyers, they were all, “You can’t do it,” and my mom and dad would have been upset. Even though I talked to them about it and they said, “You know what, if you really want to do it, that’s okay,” but I knew that it would upset them and make them uncomfortable. My parents are so great and I owe them my existence, so I couldn’t do it, but I was really tempted by it. It really is flattering. I’m 37. It’s pretty good. I feel like I’m looking pretty good. I kind of felt like, “I should take pictures of it now. It’s not going to look good in five years.”

Like co-star Shemar Moore, I wouldn’t expect any disrobing from Prentiss.

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.

Hal Boedeker - the TV Guy- reports that CBS was #1 in ratings Wednesday night. Power of Ten, hosted by Drew Carey pulled in the most viewers for the eight o’clock hour at about 8.7 million people. Rerun Criminal Minds episode “Lessons Learned” was also the top ranked show for 9:00, averaging 8.3 million viewers. Pretty impressive when a rerun generates that many viewers.
“Lessons Learned” first aired on November 22, 2006, and has agents Gideon, Prentiss, and Reid traveling to Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, to try to stop a chemical terrorist attack on the U.S. In this episode, Prentiss shows why she’s in the unit. Her knowledge of the Arabic language and culture is key in trying to prevent the anthrax attack that jihadists have planned. (For an episode recap go to TV.com) This episode was written by real BAU agent Jim Clemente.
Here’s a clip of Clemente talking about his job as a profiler. He specializes in cases involving children, particularly internet crime.

I didn’t realize Paget Brewster was on Friends. She played Joey’s girlfriend, Kathy. Kathy and Chandler kiss, Joey finds out, Chandler ends up in a box. Here’s a clip from YouTube that shows Chandler running through the streets of NYC just to say hi to her - and no one caught on that he liked her?

Paget has also done a million other television shows, Law&Order: SVU and Andy Richter Controls the World among the more well-known.
Paget’s character, Emily Prentiss, replaced Lola Glaudini’s Elle Greenaway. She talks about the reaction her character received when first on the show:

The show didn’t need another person. It just didn’t. It was an ensemble. They didn’t need to bring on another person. What they [viewers] were saying was fair, which is ‘Who is this strange person? I want to know more about Garcia. And that’s absolutely valid. Watching the show, if I hadn’t gotten the part, I would have felt the same thing.
I had to get rid of my Google alerts because so many people hated Prentiss… You do take it personally. You want people to be happy. You make a living entertaining people. You don’t want them to hate you. That’s the worse thing that could happen.

She says the BAU team has a “grudging” acceptance of her character, Prentiss. I like her on Criminal Minds because she kind of seems like the outsider for awhile and then just works her way in. Maybe the same will be true of Mandy Patinkin’s replacement, Joe Mantegna.

What’s Paget doing during the summer break from filming CM? Taking pictures of naked chics? According to MediaVillage’s Jacki Garfinkel, she will be traveling to England and Amsterdam taking photographs for the site SuicideGirls.com. “My agent keeps sending me film scripts,” Paget said. “Why would I want to work during my two months off? I want to shoot naked girls with tattoos!”
Really?

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.

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)

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!