CriminalxMinds @ LJ

Is anyone else a little bit miffed by the way they'e keeping us hanging, as pertains to Reid? Somehow, impossible though it should've been (given procedure and the fact that he should've had routine blood tests at the hospital after being rescued plus the visible marks on his arm from being forcibly injected numerous times in conjunction with the fact that the rest of the team knows that Tobias took drugs in an attempt to "escape" from his father), he's apparently managed to hide the fact that he took those two remaining vials at the end of the previous episode. And he still has the buggers! Apparently unused. But he also apparently carries them with him everywhere and expresses a rather unhealthy amount of self-hatred when Derek tells him to use the empathy he's gained with the victims because of his recent experience to become a better profiler and a better person, as if even considering himself a good person would be ludicrous. And they kept making him disappear for extended parts of tonight's show, as if to taunt viewers with the possibility that he could have been off somewhere taking the drugs (though clearly he must not have been, or he wouldn't have been functional at all for longs stretches of time during the episode and someone would've noticed). Is anyone else besides me upset about this? Not only because there's honestly no way for him to have been realistically able to hide the drugs from everyone else, but because no one else on the show seems to be concerned at all about any lingering trauma from the kidnapping itself.

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No kidding. I love how a *trained psychologist* doesn't know the difference between PTSD and empathy for the victims, too. I really have to wonder why they wouldn't have given him time off and therapy as an automatic thing; I would think at the very least he'd be staying behind in Quantico with Garcia, like he did sometimes in the first season, until he was certified ready to be in the field again. He carries a gun - I highly doubt that he'd be legally allowed to go run around with it after a severely tramatic experience without some kind of psych eval period. (Reid might be able to fool whoever was evaluating him, but that's another issue.)

Bare minimum, I have difficulty believing that the physical damage healed already, anyway.

I'm just going to assume that the drugs are a sucking plot hole of doom - I honestly don't know how he could hide them from everyone.

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The only proof I saw of any time passing was in the length of Reid's hair. It seems a bit longer than it was in the previous episodes. But that's not very firm evidence of enough time passing to account for both physical healing from the beating he took and the eval that should have been mandatory. For pity's sake, Elle had to go to a hospital after that incident on the train back about halfway or so through the first season for what I assume was a full checkup! Reid's been kidnapped and tortured and yet somehow we're supposed to believe he wasn't given any blood tests or that no one looked at his right arm the entire time he was being checked over for injuries? Paugh! Unless this is supposed to be some kind of test or something and we're supposed to be assuming that at least Gideon knows about the fact that Reid palmed the drugs and has been carrying them around with him ever since, I'm not sure how we're supposed to make logical sense of this. And that really bothers me, because before now the show has always seemed to be fairly good at keeping things so that they're either logical or else realistic.

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That's... possible, I suppose. I totally don't buy that Morgan would notice something wrong with Reid and not Gideon, so I assume Gideon knows something's up and is hoping Reid will come to him about it, instead of forcing him to talk about how he feels (every introvert's nightmare ;). Still, it seems pretty darn odd.

The only explanation I can come up with for no one noticing the drugs/injection marks is that Reid refused anything more than basic treatment for his foot and head at the time. (He could, after all, claim to be pretty traumatized and not want to be around strangers any more than necessary.)

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Gideon looks at him, twice, over the course of the episode, as if he realises that something is still very wrong, but then he says/does nothing about it. Which doesn't seem very in character for the man, to me, given that he's the one who instigated the conversation with Reid on the plane back home after Reid killed his first unsub. And he ought to know better to play a waiting game with someone as introverted as Reid is who's been hurt as badly as Reid has been. You don't cater to someone's silence if you care about that person at all. It only fuels the sense of abandonment and the sense of self-loathing/guilt that can convince even the most rational people that since it's their fault they got into a situation where they got hurt that it's their responsibility to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess by themselves and make like everything's good again whether it really is or not. I suppose it might be guilt that's keeping Gideon silent, for failing to protect Reid in the first place, but that strikes me as a kind of far-fetched and lame excuse.

And I'm pretty darn sure that, after having a near-fatal seizure and inexpert CPR that the hospital wouldn't allow him to get by with anything short of a full examination. And if the doctors were worth their salt at all, they wouldn't let him go until they were completely convinced that he wouldn't be of danger to anyone else or to himself, after suffering a trauma like that.

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I agree - in Gideon's general mentor/father figure role to Reid, there's no way he'd let this slide, especially with Reid's temperament being what it is, and it definitely looks like he knows about the situation. So either he already tried to talk to Reid about it, and was rebuffed (which I doubt, since Reid was willing to talk a bit to Morgan, who he has far less of a relationship with), or he's waiting for something as yet unknown to happen.

You're quite right about waiting games with introverts, though. Heh. Even without any trauma, you'd grow old and die before one of us brought up anything stressful and personal. Reid would definitely never ask for help, especially when he's surrounded by a group of people that's largely emotionally tougher than he is.

I think doctors have to release you, even if it's AMA, as long as you're lucid, but I'm not entirely sure of the regulations on that. The only other possibility I can think of is that the drug use was regarded as confidential information, and so the team wasn't informed. They aren't next-of-kin, so if Reid asked the doctor not to say anything, they would be bound by that.

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marykaykare.livejournal.com

Errr. Reid is extremely tough emotionally -- he knows it and so do the others even if they do fuss over him. You don't manage your schizophrenic mother for 8 years until you're old enough to commit her legally without being tough. You don't live with your fear of your own possible mental illness without being tough. Tough doesn't mean you can't break of course, but he *is* quite tough emotionally.

MKK

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I agree. Reid is, if anything, the emotionally toughest of the lot of them, and they're a tough lot.

And actually, one thing we've seen about these guys over and over again is the amount of distance and autonomy they grant each other. Everybody's trauma is his own to carry. You have to get right with youself. Which may not be helpful, but it's the culture they have.

Though Hotch might kick your butt into counseling if he thinks you need it.

I think they're doing a really good job portraying trauma survivors in all their glory, and if sometimes it isn't pretty, well... I personally am pleased that I'm not certain we'll get a happy ending.

I think it would be facile and Hollywood to have him just setting that trauma aside after one episode, and I would be very disappointed in a show I've grown to respect for its depth of characterization if they did that.

One thing I'm sure of is that Reid will never quite be portrayed the same way. And I'm in mourning for that (as I imagine his team mates are), because I adore the character. But I hope, at the very least, he gets his ebullience back.

I'd hate to see him turn into Gideon.

Actually, I suspect Gideon would hate to see him turn into Gideon.

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I think he must be waiting for something. I just can't, for the life of me, figure out what it is, unless he's waiting for Reid to actually start to break before he does anything. And that doesn't fit with the whole mentor/student, father/son type of relationship they have, either, so . . . *Throws up hands, not knowing what else to do or think*

He would especially not do so considering how insecure he's consistently been shown regarding his place on the team. After all, he's probably terrified that they might take it as a sign that he's unfit for duty and take him off of active duty permanently, or something.

Well, let's see, he suffers from a pistol-whipping that gives him a definite concussion (remember how the Reid POV is all blurry? The blow to the temple's also hard enough to not only break the skin and raise a whelp but to knock him completely out), a beating (fists), some deliberate torture (foot/leg), enough drugs to knock him unconscious and/or make him dissociate completely from reality at least three times (that we're shown), and a fall backwards onto a floor while restrained, AFTER suffering two more head injuries, which then precipitates a major seizure that results in unconsciousness at the least and what looks like a complete lack of breathing (or at least very little breathing) at the worst for something like a full minute, if not two, which then results in an energetic if somewhat inexpert application of CPR in an attempt to revive him. Aside from the very real possibility of cracked or broken ribs and cracken or broken bones in his foot, we're talking about serious potential for brain injury, here, plus the possibility of a psychotic break due to the drugs, and, given everything that he's experienced during the kidnapping plus his family history, if I were a writer on the show, I would be completely within my rights to hit him with the possibility of either temporal lobe scarring and/or epilepsy or a complete psychotic break. There's no way in Hades any kind of competent doctor would just look at his foot and nod and send the boy on his way. He'd have to be in for a CAT-scan at the very least plus some basic bloodwork (due to the possibility of infection from the head wound and/or from any gashes taken to his bare feet), and observation, even without any knowledge of the drugging. Which kind of leaves the show up a creek, for perhaps the first time in its history that I'm aware of, when it comes to a major plot point having enough realism to it to be believable in any real way. Not, you understand, that I want them to give the poor kid brain damage, because I'd scream bloody murder if they tried it, but still - ! Those injuries were serious enough to be life-threatening and even if he'd tried to plead trauma and etc. all they'd probably do is offer him some more drugs and then move him to the psych ward for follow-up after they've done all the other tests.

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*g* I see you read my post on Reid's injuries!

I'm thinking there's at least a month between last ep and this one. This may not even be the first case he's been on.

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Yep. I started listing, couldn't remember the order, tried to check to see if anyone had listed them, and then finished the post. I thought I had a line in there about how "as someone else has already noted" but now I can't see it. Sorry about that! I'm a bit scatty right now - I got my hand slammed in a car door and I think I took one too many pain pills last night.

Well, his hair's visibly longer and fuller where it's got more of a wave to it, which probably hides some of the extra length. Human hair grows approximately 15 millimeters, or about 5/8 of an inch, a month, and I think he's got at least another inch, so I was thinking two months. But the lack of any contextual comments about the passage of times makes it difficult to support an assumption like that.

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Oh, and I think Hotch and Gideon are waiting for Reid to *ask* for help. Because you can't save somebody who doesn't want to be saved.

Look at Reid and Tobias for an example. Reid could have saved Tobias as well as himself, if Tobias had been willing to fight Charles, and do any of the things Reid asked him to: take off the handcuffs, tell him where they were.

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With their training, they should know better than to wait until someone who's obviously drowning asks for help.

Reid tried to save Tobias. Tobias didn't think he could be saved. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't save everyone. But at least Reid tried. Which is more than I can say, at this point, for anyone else on the team in regards to Reid aside from Morgan.

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Well, we have no evidence that they *didn't* know about the injections. Time passes rapidly on this show; this ep takes place after a weekend; Reid's healed from his injuries which means he could have detoxed in the hospital and been on medical leave for weeks. He's not limping; he's not being told to go home and get some rest a la Elle so obviously he did not come back early, as she did.

They always give you a pointillist view of the character's lives, here--look back at the episode in which we find out that Hotch's son has a chronic illness.

I'm thinking this episode takes place a minimum of two weeks after the last one, probably closer to a month.

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saturniia.livejournal.com

Regarding the "trained psychologist" thing, the only thing that comes to mind is "psychologist, shrink thy own head". That doesn't mesh with Reid, though, so maybe he just needs the money?

(Yes, I'm trying to rationalize this, but mainly because I'm happy they're making Reid more than "whiz kid who kisses models, solves crimes, and has power of attorney for his mother because she's schizophrenic (sp?). I love old!Reid, but he needs to grow into new!Reid in order to stay interesting over a long period of time.)

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Heh. I meant Morgan, actually - he should be well-trained enough, given his job, to know that it's extremely likely Reid would have lingering aftereffects as a result of his experience. Reid, I acknowledge, is the one having the issues, so it's unlikely he'd entirely be able to deal with it alone.

Usually counseling is provided gratis by the agency to agents, and I think some kind of psych eval is mandatory in any case where the agent shot someone, so it's not a money issue. I can buy that Reid would avoid it, though, and undoubtedly know exactly what answers to give to get himself out of it as soon as possible.

I'm not debating the necessity to give some depth to his character, just a bit of the execution. ;)

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saturniia.livejournal.com

I'm not at all upset. Regarding the issue of the drugs, I can admit that yes, it is a bit lame that there are some obvious plot holes, but I can hope that the reasons for those plot holes will be addressed in a later episode.

Regarding the self-hatred, I think it's in character. Extremely high intelligence is a character trait of his, but positive self-image is not. It's been shown that he's a humble character who doesn't express a high opinion of himself unless he's done something other people think is worthy of praise. Also, he was a victim in the last case he worked, and while he was under the influence his brain decided to relive the memory of putting his mother-- the woman who praised him for being smart when his father cut him down, and read to him even when she didn't feel well-- in the mental hospital he visits in "The Fisher King, Pt. 1". Even if he normally has a more positive self-image than the one expressed in "Fear and Loathing", those factors are enough to bring anyone down.

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Oh, I wasn't trying to say that was out of character. I was griping because it worries me - one of the classic responses to a traumatic event is to blame yourself for not preventing it - and Morgan didn't seem to react to it. Gideon seems to notice twice during the show that perhaps all is not well with our young Dr. Reid, but he says nothing about it. And while it's normal for most people to back away from sensitive/traumatic subjects because they don't know what to say and don't want to cause pain and etc. etc. (plug in whatever lame-duck excuse you like), someone with Gideon's training should know better than to just let something like this fester in silence. Morgan, who does seem to realize that something is very wrong still with Reid, at least tries to help (I was reminded of a certain conversation those two had about nightmares, fairly early on back in season one), but then at the end it's as if he doesn't/can't see Reid anymore. Anyone looking at him at that moment should've seen that flash of self-hatred and tried to do something about it. Instead, we get the end of the episode with no sense of any real progress or resolution for Reid's situation. Which bothers me to no end because I know that the longer you go without getting help for something like this the harder it will be to let someone else in enough to help. And Reid's not a very open person to begin with, you know?

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unmellow-yellow.livejournal.com

I think it's the same as with Elle in terms of the team not being there and not being concerned about the agents after the traumatic incident. They don't seem like a very supportive team to me ever since we saw what happened with Elle.

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And of course, the only person who really seemed to notice something was wrong or to care about what'd happened with Elle afterwards was Reid - who kept being told not to blame himself about it, afterwards. You'd think they would've learned their lesson after they lost Elle, but evidently they're all still in denial. Rather piss-poor and/or unbelieveable behavior for people who're trained to profile people psychologically, don't you think?

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Oh man. I'm so torn.

One one hand, MGG hit the ball OUT OF THE PARK with that last scene. The tone of his voice, the subtle changes in the look on his face, his body language, everything. That kid deserves an Emmy or a Golden Globe or something, coz daaaaaaamn.

On the other hand, I all but stood on the couch and yelled at Reid to flush the drugs. *le sigh*

And I'm with you guys on the whole "uninturrupted night" thing. My older sister called during a commercial, and I snapped that she'd better make it quick because tonight I had a date with my tv boyfriend for Valentine's Day.

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palpableparadox.livejournal.com

I thought they may show Reid flushing the drugs after the last scene, but they didn't. Ugh.

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I was SO hoping, but I'm afraid they're not done with it yet. *sigh*

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The actor who plays Reid does a very good job, I agree. It's a little bit scary how completely at ease he seems to be in this role and how naturally he comes across. I don't have to work to believe the character because he plays it so perfectly. Even when what he's doing doesn't make sense, given who the character is, he's still belieavable. I'm just upset with this whole drugs plotline and want it resolved quickly and (if not completely belieavably then at least) logically.

I've actually been known to take the phone off the hook so no one can call during the show. *Shrugs* It's easier than having to yell at someone and then try to deal with them when they get miffed because "It's just a show!"

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I completely agree with you about MGG. He's done a fantastic job with Reid, even though I can't seem to figure out if it's because he's a slightly awkward guy to begin with or because he's just that! damn! good! (I'm leaning towards that! damn! good!, because after watching the Meet Matthew Gray Gubler thing from the S1 dvds, he's hysterically funny and not socially awkward at all. Hilariously geeky and outrageously eccentric, yes, but not socially awkward.)

Yeah, see, our phone does this high pitched "BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP" noise if we leave it off the hook too long, and that's more distracting than telling the people to stop calling during Criminal Minds. XD

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*Raises eyebrow inquiringly* Which dvd is that on? I'm renting the discs while I wait for my copy to arrive in the mail. I've made it through the first three discs without seeing anything like that. I'm guessing that means it's on the last disc? *Sighs because it probably is*
I know they've incorporated at least one thing from MGG's life into his character's life (the whole bit with the sleight of hand trick), but I don't think just one commonality (or even a few) can account for just how perfectly this role seems to fit him. He's very, very good and extremely convincing as Reid.

*Lol!* Lucky me! Our downstairs line is too quiet to hear from the one room to the next!

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It would definately be on the very last one, after The Fisher King (pt1). It's this whole little featurette with him, and when I finished watching it I turned to my mom and was like, "I need to marry somone JUST LIKE HIM".

And we know after Revelations that MGG has something else in common with Reid....they both wear mismatched socks. Hee.

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saturniia.livejournal.com

Mismatched socks are kickass.

That, and they're the product of people who can't be bothered to sort their sock drawer.

A little from column A, a little from column B...

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*Lol!* You're not the only one, hon!

*Giggles* Makes you wonder what else some of these actors have in common with their characters, doesn't it?

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rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com

Doesn't it have a ringer that you can turn off?

I just bought a DVR that lets me pause TV in the middle of watching it, so if the phone does ring (heaven forbid) I can pause the show. But I'm more likely to just not answer the phone. :)

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bellipotens.livejournal.com

I have to say, I laughed REALLY hard at the Jeffrey Dahmer scene. The guy playing Dahmer was about 40. When Dahmer was actually pulled over, he was 17 or 18 years old...I'm also a geek and picky about things like that.

Anyway, the episode was awesome. My favourite part was probably the beginning. I liked the interaction between Morgan and Prentiss. I'm glad that she's finally beginning to integrate herself into the team. I love her character. I'm not sure why. There's just something about her.

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That "fiftee- uh, twelve years" with Prentiss at the end was pretty emphasized, so they've got to be building some backstory with that and the comment about her perpetual emotional distance... not enough clues yet for me to make much of a guess, though.

Echoing the Go MGG crowd - he's really doing a fantastic job of acting lately. I'm curious to see how this whole plotline plays out!

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unmellow-yellow.livejournal.com

What "fiftee-uh, twelve years" part? Sorry, I zoned out during her and Derek's convo after she gave him the book.

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