To be or not to be...

[a_blackpanther]

This is the discussion post for Episode 7x06 - "Epilogue". Watch out for SPOILERS in the comments

Comments

[annievh.livejournal.com]

yes, i'm not saying it's not true. just that tv loves to do the same thing over and over again.

[dragonladyk.livejournal.com]

In this case, on this show, they do it "over and over again" because that's how it is in real life. Saying that Criminal Minds should stop giving the unsubs sob stories is like saying, "i hate how they have the sun rise in the east all the time, jeeze, they should have it rise in the west so it wouldn't be boring."

That's just not a logical criticism.

DragonLady

[annievh.livejournal.com]

Okay, before I say anything I just HAVE to compliment you on the "sun rising in the west" image because is SUCH an elegant example!! I <3'ed it!

On the subject of unsub's background, it doesn't bother me so much the fact that they use ABUSE that much, but that they just use "parental abuse" over and over, only finding a few variations along the way - this one was drowned by daddy, this one was beaten, this was molested. It just seems to be a repetition of the same clichè, and as you said, there is teacher's abuse, and other family members, and bullying - though I'm pretty sure (this is me guessing) that parental abuse is the most common one.

As a TV plot, it's no fun to watch when I know what's going to happen. And I feel a little manipulated that I am supposed to feel sorry for sob-story!unsubs who kill, but unsubs who rape and torture are just plain EVIL-BORN!unsubs.

But this is me and my TV issues.

TL;DR -- my own nitpicks about the show

[dragonladyk.livejournal.com]

I <3'ed it!

Thank you. ^^

that parental abuse is the most common one.

It is, by a landslide.

who rape and torture are just plain EVIL-BORN!unsubs

We haven't actually had an evil-born!unsub on Criminal Minds that wasn't a child or in the grip of a mental illness (though sometimes the triggering horror-story is only mentioned on the side instead of a narrative focus). The writers been very, very good about not going the Bad Seed route, which I appreciate, because psychologists have pretty much proven that doesn't exist. Children can have brain damage or misfirings in brain development that can make them capable of sociopathic, murderous actions if left undiagnosed and/or untreated, true, but the key phrase there is "undiagnosed and untreated." There are far more people with frontal-lobe development problems/endocrine imbalance than there are serial killers, precisely because proper parenting can overcome those biological tendencies. I LOVE that this show keeps ramming that point home because there are too many people in lobbyist/educational/parenting circles who literally give up on kids because of the Bad Seed belief. KEEP SUBVERTING THAT SUCKER, SHOW, SUBVERT IT!

The other four times they've seriously pushed Willful Suspension of Disbelief too far from a forensic psychology standpoint were: the unsub in The Fisher King (yeah, right, as if); Adam/Amanda and Tobias Henkel (there's never been a single clinically proven case of multiple personality disorder, and to run into two who both focus the same profiler? Uh, no); and George Foyet (who was a Perfect Storm). I do give them a pass on Foyet, though, because in order to get the endgame of a Professor Moriarty to Hotch's Sherlock, they really couldn't have written him any other way.

Personaly, I'd like a little more variety in crime type: more arson, more bombers or snipers, more "Won't Get Fooled Again"/"Derailed"-style plot twists, and some unsubs that are just in it for the money. There is a whole host of "serial"-type crimes career criminals perpetrate for no other reason than the money, and the FBI does deal with them.

...but the Suits probably think those'd be boring. :/

I can just see it now:
Exec: "So it's not a serial killer?"
Writer: "Exactly! It just looks like one at the beginning."
Exec: "But this is a show about serial killers. It has to be a serial killer at the end."
Writer: "But the BAU in real life handles all sorts of cases, not just serial killers, and this would be different from what we normally do."
Exec: "Viewers don't want different. They tune in to see serial killers because this show is marketed as being about serial killers, so give them serial killers."

DragonLady

Re: It's about serial killers.

[nwjarvis.livejournal.com]

Probably true about the Exec, which is a shame because one of the things they were careful to exposit in the very first episode was that the BAU *doesn't* just do serial killers.

But, dammit, if we're talking about the Messer level exec, she should know better. I don't think story ideas get pitched higher than that, judging from some of the FUs to TPTB we saw in Season 6. Which just makes it more irritating, I guess.