criminalxminds | (no subject)

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I've been a lurker for a while, commenting from time to time. I don't think I've ever posted before though.

What kind of unsub/plot do you prefer?

a) We know right from beginning who the unsub is
b) The unsub isn't revealed until the last minute
c) We only find out the unsub's identity about half way through the episode
d) Other (did I miss something?)

I was watching last week's episode (Epilogue) and I realized I don't like knowing who the unsub is right off the bat. I like trying to piece things together and figure out who the unsub myself.

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I like putting pieces of the puzzle together to figure out who the unsub is.
But I love the episodes like when the unsubs have victims captive (thinking of the scary doll episode, and the one where the woman told her victims to say positive mantras to themselves) and they put together the pieces.

Oh who am I kidding, I love CM.

I don't like last minute surprise unsubs though.

I like the ones where it's only revealed at the last minute. Those keep me guessing, and I like that.

Yes yes yes! I don't post/comment much either, but I liked it when we never knew who the unsub was until like 10, 15 minutes before it was over! A few years ago, I'd try to watch it 'live' but I was so tired, I'd fall asleep on a commercial and wake up as it was ending and wonder "Who is that? How'd they figure it out?" (Now I don't bother trying to stay awake...) But I'm definitely one of those who'd rather NOT know who it is right away... (unless of course you recognize the name in the credits or the voice.)

I think I like the ones where we know ahead of time or somewhere around the middle. The problem I have with the ones at the very end is that I can usually guess the unsub about halfway through anyway and then I get kind of bored with the 'who is it?' storytelling. So when it's at the beginning or towards the middle I don't have to deal with the guessing and I like the storyline better.

Whodunit is only one of a number of approaches to a police procedural plot; others--perfectly capable of overlapping--include Why'd They Do It ("Riding the Lightning"), Can We Stop Them Before They Do It ("Lessons Learned"), What Else Are They Going To Do ("Lo-Fi"), and WTF Is Going On Here (some of the weirder UNSUB POVs.)

It's fun when you're playing the whodunnit game along with the characters. You know how to sort out the red herrings and all-too-obvious suspects, and guessed who the unsub is before our BAU guys do. If you win, you get to down two shots! /not a drunk

Sometimes the creepiest storylines are when you've already seen the unsub but it didn't matter. Like in 'Lucky' and 'Mosley Lane'. It's more of a 'how you trap/catch it' game.

Edited 2011-11-10 01:57 (UTC)

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I like this too - I like how it shows that the team is not always right about everything on the first try, and it also can offer surprise, whereas the ones that are revealed at the very end, you can sometimes figure out early, as

wordsinviting said above.

I like the ones where we think someone is the unsub but then they end up either being a victim, or knowing the unsub.

The show itself has a house term for this sort of red herring: the UnSchmuck.

(A frequent message of this show is that weirdness--or even downright creepiness--does not equal guilt; recall the Goth kid whose upstanding paramedic father turned out to be the instigator of the Choking Game, or how the coven of Satanist headbangers were the only kids who didn't know about the corpse in the woods. Criminal Minds has also shown a creditable track record of doing its homework on the Subculture-of-the-Week.)

Any of them pretty much work for me, although where we see the UnSub's creepiness throughout I sometimes have to look away from the screen.

I'm more interested in the plot and the characters.

I have no particular preference for knowing/not-knowing the unsub at the beginning nearly so much as having all the narrative ducks in a row. I can enjoy a story equally well with a "Uncanny Valley" reveal or an "Omnivore" surprise as long as all of the contingent parts make sense and fit together. But as soon as you throw in an "Epilogue"-like fuckery (like Dr. Spencer Reid not knowing that stimuli experienced during unconciousness is completely quantifiable, no mystery there) or lolwhut like the supernatural "ambiguity" in "Demonology," or Reid saying that 2 seconds of exposure to a pathogen = 20 minutes... I am jerked right out of the story... and am rather pissed off.

My favorites, and I wish we had more of them, are the non-psychosexual whodunits. Like "Derailed," "Won't Get Fooled Again," "The Tribe," "Hopeless" ("It was fun, boss" OMGPERFECT), or "Penelope."

DragonLady

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