criminalxminds | Roundtable Mondays: Identity

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com posting in

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! I'm Drea, and I'll be your host for these Round Table Discussions. Each week, I'll have a bit of meta or a discussion question for you, and this post will be your space in which to debate and discuss the topic. Because of the fascinating and multifaceted nature of Criminal Minds, these could be anything from which character you're most like to your thoughts on 'ships to what makes a sociopath tick. And yes, they'll all be titled after CM episodes, because I think I'm clever like that.

A few rules to go over, first (besides the community rules that always apply):

1) No bashing anyone else's opinions. You may disagree with any number of things in one of my posts or the posts of others, that doesn't give you the right to start trashing them.
2) These posts are for discussion only. They are not the place to ask for downloads, plead for fanart, rec fanfiction, or hate on the creators.
3) If you feel someone is breaking the rules or derailing the conversation, please PM me or one of the mods privately.
4) I - as well as the mods - reserve the right to toss anyone who doesn't follow the comm rules out of the post. The thread will be locked and you will be asked to either change your behavior or leave.

Now that that's out of the way - for this inaugural post, I'd like to start with one of the most basic questions: What do you love most about Criminal Minds? Is it the action? The drama? The creepy UnSubs? Our fearless team? All of the above? Or something I haven't thought of?

What I've always loved most about Criminal Minds is the strong inter-team relationships. I didn't come into the show from the beginning; I actually held out on watching it for years because I was a bit ticked off that The Inside (an eerily similar and excellent show) was canceled and CM wasn't. But my parents were fans, and one night, I looked up from my laptop to find a brilliant and amazing storyline going on.

It was "Lucky", and I could ignore all the cannibalism because there was this gorgeous blonde tech girl who was plus-sized (!!!) and was discussing relationships and flirting with her gorgeous male co-worker. And when faced with his very obvious concern for her, she didn't take the easy reaction, she listened to him and explained her point of view. Penelope Garcia and Derek Morgan were the reasons I couldn't take my eyes off that episode, and the one following, where she was shot and he had a crisis of faith completely tangential to that.

Their loving and still completely platonic relationship caught my attention, but the other team relationships solidified that. I loved Emily and JJ holding hands and silently being there for each other. I loved Reid being an insufferable, yet extremely useful genius, and helping Garcia remember her shooting. I loved the friction between Rossi and the rest of the team, contrasted with his friendship with Hotch. I loved Hotch's stoicism and complete devotion to his team.

I love that this show gives us seven different people and over three dozen different relationships between them. I love that no two relationships are alike, and that all are given importance and weight within the narrative. The relationships aren't superficial, and they're used so deftly each and every week to give us at least one moment where we can look at a scene and see the relationship-related subtext.

For example, how heartrending is Reid's mistrust of JJ in season seven, when you remember how close they are? How she helped him detox and shot three dogs for him and took him to baseball games and made him godfather to her son.

How apropos is it that Prentiss is the one that Rossi confides in about Carolyn? They share not only Catholicism, but the Galen case, the story of Prentiss's abortion, supporting Hotch through Haley's death, and mentorship of Ashley Seaver.

No matter how bad the show gets - and let's face it, there have been some subpar episodes over the course of seven years - we know that our team at least has each other.

So how about you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

define-serenity.livejournal.com

strong inter-team relationships, definitely there with you! i love how different all these characters are, how fully 3D they are and the friendships they've formed over the years. (my personal favourite is Reid, because i feel that out of all the characters you can track his development best throughout the seasons - but that might have to do with his age as well)

i watch an insane amount of shows, including a lot of police procedurals, and what i love most about CM is how it's unlike all the others (unlike you, i wasn't a big fan of The Inside) it doesn't matter if you see or can guess who the UnSub is from the start, because that's not what the show is about.

all of this to throw in my two cents :))

From:

scandalbaby.livejournal.com

it doesn't matter if you see or can guess who the UnSub is from the start, because that's not what the show is about

Exactly. There's very few crime procedurals I've ever watched where I didn't care as much about the cases as the team solving them, but this is always at the top of my list in that regard. And this isn't to say some of the UnSubs haven't been fascinating, either.

From:

rabirhek.livejournal.com

Going along with what's been noted above - Two things about this show made me a fan: the characters, and the different premise. I do not follow procedurals; I enjoy a good crime drama whenever it's on, but Criminal Minds actually is the first and only (foreign-made) TV show I've ever been a consistent follower of.

The show stands out to me because each of the characters are made very real and very accessible, which isn't something usual in crime procedurals. Along with the premise of trying to find and catch killers based on their psychology, it brings the show to a very human level. Absolutely fantastic characterization - that is what I love the most about CM.

From:

freddlerabbit.livejournal.com

I really love the inter-team relationships, and I have especially loved how, in the past, the writers have managed to work details about those relationships and about who the characters are into the show in very tiny, small ways - offhand references, a line or two of dialogue, while keeping the show really focused on the case at hand. That has been less true this season, with more time being devoted to the team members' home lives, and less time to the cases, and I'm divided about that - I liked the sense of earning knowledge about the characters, rather than just being fed it. And I loved how the team dynamics could make the gruesome details even more interesting of a challenge!

From:

philstar22.livejournal.com

For me, it started out as being about the profiling. I was really interested in profiling before the show even existed. I've read all the books by the real FBI profilers. I just find the whole thing so interesting.

As I got into the show, certain characters grabbed me. First, it was Hotch and Gideon. Then it was Prentiss. All the characters are amazing, but certain ones just grab me. I agree with you about the team relationship, though. I love the way they interact and how each has strengths they bring to the table. They really are stronger together than apart.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I just like how goes way back they are. Like, first episode started with Haley wanting to name their future baby Gideon, there is just a familiarity about them all.

Like when Gideon was caretaking Hotch immediately post Perotta almost strangling him in "Natural Born Killer", mmmmnnn.

When I was a little girl, I once dreamt of growing up to be James Bond, even though I'm a girl, well, I guess what I had wanted was to grow up to be Prentiss. Srsly, BOSS-level awesome.

I just wish there wasn't so much /graphic/ violence in this show so I can rec it to me wee cousins, cause it really does have a lot of awesome female role models. I don't think that it's about crime would rule it out as being suitable for young girls (with guidance), if it weren't so graphic, I was reading Sherlock Holmes in grade school.

From:

define-serenity.livejournal.com

/butting in

question: is Criminal Minds really considered as a VERY graphic/violent show? i understand that it's a violent show, but here in Belgium most of our police procedurals (even the pretty tame ones) display blood, sex & nudity on a regular basis (it's not porn though XD) and every time i hear people talking about "audience squeaks" or how graphic CM is i don't really understand why that is.

i do understand that American shows are made on a whole different level, the audience for CM is exponentially larger than any Belgian police procedural, but sometimes i feel like America makes such a big deal of "keep it away from the children!" while i'm told CM is schedules late enough to be avoided by children?

all of this is said with the utmost respect and purest curiosity (i must add i'm generally unaffected by horror/graphically violent things XD)

From:

nwjarvis.livejournal.com

I think the thing about CM is that they really aren't that graphic about violence. What they are, on a good day, is visceral. Violence isn't romanticized; they show you the results of violence in a way that emphasizes that violence is messy and disturbing and has effects beyond the immediate moment.

The torture of Spencer Reid in Revelations is a case in point; there's very little actual violence shown on-screen, but we get a real sense of the effect it has on him. And it's played very realistically: no stoic, manly suffering here - Reid squeals and begs and cries and sweats like... well, like a real person being tortured. And, IMO, it would be a mistake to think of Reid as a 'wimp'. As he has pointed out, he was a 12-year old prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school - he knows how to absorb punishment.

From:

define-serenity.livejournal.com

oh i definitely agree with you on this, but i feel American shows in general have to tip-toe around this (probably because of censorship laws) Belgian shows can be just as visceral (if not more) but we never talk about "audience squeaks" - i should probably research the difference in censorship laws :D

thanks for your reply!

From:

never-at-home.livejournal.com

I remember thinking "I can't believe they got away with this on network television" when we were shown Foyet slowly and repeatedly stabbing Hotch in the manner he did -- the dialogue and staging making it even that more intimate and horrific.

All done without much blood, too. It was extraordinarily shocking.

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

Particularly given the implication--carefully left to the audience's worst imaginings--of what else might have happened between the two.

From:

tearbos.livejournal.com

I love the balance of awesome team moments alongside interesting cases.

While I live for the little moments of character development and interaction, I like that the cases usually still take precedence over whatever side drama is happening. I've seen a lot of dramas and procedurals get bogged down in character conflict, and for the most part CM has avoided this- aside from the occasional story arc.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

It's the near gender equal case and the constant gender bending. For example, I love how JJ/Will is set up to be the analogue of Hotch/Haley, but genderflipped. JJ is small-bodied and LOOKs like a girly girl, but she was the jock, and so steely with media relations, so IN CONTROL. Will is more like Reid in terms of traditional gender role, and he doesn't seem to have an issue with it. Awww, he looked so fragile in "Jones" when he wrapped his arms around himself in the police station.

I love how blithe Spencer is about not being an Alpha mare, the remark about blinking, and when he volunteer as the NOT!Alpha male who the wife of one wouldn't find threatening in "Compromising Positions".

I love how rape is called out as a terrible crime, but the victims are frequently shown to be survivors. I love that woman in the first episode, where, kept in a cage with a chain around her neck, she kicked the unsub! I feel so proud of the young girl in A Thousand Words, I think at that point, she had been kept a week by the unsub, but she's still a strong and good girl, she cared about the baby and told them to take care of the baby first, even though it's the baby of her rapists, I think she'll recover fine.

I love Jason Gideon, even his mean steak, he's mean because he's absolutely disgusted by what the unsubs do, this man uses compartmentization to deal with this job that he's been doing for /30 years/, but he really can't remove himself from it, he looks at the photos of the victims and he can emotionally realise that they were alive, he can't disconnect from it. I admire how long he have kept going, how hard he fights to have some measure of happiness in his life even when he's become very very cracked, so it's so heartbreaking to see him lose the last of that, that safe space of himself he has kept, his cabin becoming a crime scene of sort and then having his old friend killed in his home. All this after the six agents.

I love Rossi too, that came later. I don't know how to explain it, Jason is this complex book, it takes time to figure out, and then you can't forget it. Rossi is this brilliant pop song, he's so light at first, I heard people say, even last year, that "Rossi doesn't do anything", he doesn't get the great dramas (before his wife that is), he old the old cases. But like a brilliant pop song, you listen to it again and again because it's light, and THEN, all these subtle things slowly rise to the surface.

"Epilogue" was really brilliant, the Epilogue of Rossi's story, or the one that introduces us to him that finally tells us what - Both Gideon and Hotch have family outside of their team, and Reid has a mother, all three of them for different reasons don't spend enough time with their family outside the BAU. It's true that Gideon and Hotch acted as the parents of the BAU, but well, it's hard to juggle being the parent of your own child and then your students/subordinates. Rossi on the other hand, the team is his family. One of the reasons I didn't get Rossi at first, is how well he fits. Not in terms of character, but in terms of function. It's like he exist as the Hero's Girlfriend and/or the Hero's Driver and/or the Hero's Wingman...but who is he? Why is he sliding in as the team parent?

That little gravestone at the end of "Epilogue" explains everything - with his first wife, who he still loves, there was a baby who was either still born or died very soon, I don't remember the exact dates but the birth to death was the same year.

Brilliant show, brilliant!

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

Alpha male, not mare, oh Freudian slips.

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

I'm probably an awful person for imagining Spencer strolling up the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard with a wobbly little eight-legged foal in tow.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I was picturing a pouting Spencer being ridden by JJ or Emily, ya know, Alpha's mare?

Did you see the pictures of MGG in footies pajamas being carried by some women who are cute but not as cute as him?

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

That little gravestone at the end of "Epilogue" explains everything - with his first wife, who he still loves, there was a baby who was either still born or died very soon, I don't remember the exact dates but the birth to death was the same year.

The dates of birth and death were the same day.

And that also explains his exaggerated paternal obsession with the orphaned family in "Damaged", and his readiness to serve as a gruffly paternal mentor to those of his comrades who can serve as surrogate sons and daughters. Note particularly his ready bonding with Seaver; he lost a child, she lost a father, and there's already an eerie degree of connection in that it was Rossi who caught Seaver's father.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I just love how much Rossi un-self-consciously caretakes the team.

Is it so wrong that if it weren't for the beard, may be I would totally want to sit in his lap?

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

Is it so wrong that if it weren't for the beard, may be I would totally want to sit in his lap?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

Meh, sexualization of santa isn't my thing, that might be part of why the beard isn't my thing.

Holy crap, I just realise that while beard!Rossi doesn't do much for me, crossdressed!Rossi does. It's probably because he's a masculine Italian man who is very comfortable playing the other role (like when him and Hotch was speaking as the Dominant/submissive unsubs, he spoke as the submissive), like he's GGG curious about the other side.

You'll probably have to appreciate New Pornographer's Sing Me Spanish Techno vid to appreciate it:
youtube.com/watch?v=qDUHJNVjpS0

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

God, yes. Rossi is probably my favorite character, and the one who I'm probably watching for at any given time, and that bit just made me sob. It explains SO much (and I'd always suspected he'd once had children).

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

It really makes the Rossi and Hotch coach soccer scene extra poignant doesn't it?

From:

briasoleil.livejournal.com

I'm absolutely new to the show and the fandom. (Umm, hi!) For years, I've listened to one of my best friends go on and on about the show and I was decidedly unconvinced, to say the least. I'd see bits of episodes here and there and it just didn't click.

To be honest, I'm not generally a fan of procedurals. I'm a quirky genre girl (Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls) with a penchant for compelling dramas (My So-Called Life, Shameless US, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, The Good Wife) and smart &/or off-kilter comedies (Arrested Development, Sports Night, Newsradio, Raising Hope, Twitch City, Kids in the Hall). Oh, and most of the Jossverse, which almost entirely constitutes my forays into fantasy and sci-fi. But over the years, I've watched some CSI, the entirety of Bones and the occasional episode of L&O (most incarnations) if there's a guest actor that I really enjoy (Jeremy Allen White - so much love).

So, for years, I've resisted Criminal Minds and had determined, based on my limited exposure, that I was right to eschew it. Then, in late August, on a Sunday afternoon when I was exceedingly bored and nothing on either the Food Network or HGTV (my guilty pleasures) interested me, I caught the "Famous Guest Stars" marathon on either A&E or Bravo.

The first episodes I caught were Reid-centric and it turns out that I love Reid a lot. I mean, like, exponentially a lot. Immensely. And I was quasi-hooked. Between that marathon and the season 7 premiere, I managed to watch the entire six seasons previously aired. Initially, the Reid-centric episodes were what held my interest. Those that didn't feature him as much (hello, season five - poor MGG) tended to bore me, so I'd do other things while they were on.

I've since managed to watch the show, in its entirety, for the second time. (I don't actually watch much tv and I've had a sinus infection since September, so I've spent a lot of time curled up in my bed with my laptop and CM.) The myriad relationships on this show are fascinating and compelling; these characters have such a strong familial bond (no intra-team shipping for me) that so few shows about families are capable of rendering. They're never stagnant and never false. There's such a wonderful ebb and flow to these relationships, that can be both so joyous and so heartbreaking, it has the power to flummox me.

And then, there's Reid. A deft portrayal by Matthew Gray Gubler, imnsho. And there's just something about the character: extreme vulnerability coupled with staggering brilliance, immense guilt coupled with a plethora of trust and abandonment issues, tremendous geekiness coupled with a near limitless ability for compassion and empathy. I just can't help but love him and, in many ways, I do understand and identify with him.

Also, I do find the psychology interesting.

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

Hi! Welcome!

I absolutely agree with being more of a genre/drama fan. I tend towards sci-fi (Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Star Trek), period/foreign dramas (Mad Men, The Hour, Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, Carnivale, Downton Abbey), and quirky genre shows (Burn Notice, Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes, White Collar, Castle - which is more genre than procedural, imo).

Also, FOOD NETWORK SOLIDARITY. No shame here, I love spending a weekend watching Chopped or Iron Chef or Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives, or Best Thing I Ever Ate or anything on that damn network. And I have a deep and snarky love for Tony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay.

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

Speaking of Food Network solidarity: after Rossi's dinner party-cum-cooking seminar in "Proof", was I the only one fiercely desirous of seeing Joe Mantegna as a celebrity panelist on Iron Chef America?

(For a Mario Batali episode, of course.)

From:

briasoleil.livejournal.com

That would be awesome. And needs to happen. Alas, I don't think Mario Batali is still on Iron Chef.

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

No, I think he'd be brilliant. He owns at least part of a few restaurants in Chicago, and he's pretty well-spoken.

(Alas, Mario Batali is no longer on Iron Chef. I think Joe would have a great time with either Michael Symon or Cat Cora.)

From:

briasoleil.livejournal.com

Thank you! It's been fun!

I feel like squeeing about so many things, but for everyone else, it's completely old news. Alas. This is what I get for being a snob.

Have you watched Shameless US? It has one of the best ensemble casts ever in the history of television and a lot of these are children or young adults. And the writing is superb.

I love Anthony Bourdain. And I also adore Alton Brown. One of my favourite chefs is Chuck Hughes, who I think is absolutely adorable and just fun. Chuck's Day Off is mandatory viewing, in part because of the indie Canadian bands that get played during the show.

Thank you for being so welcoming!

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

Aw, that does tend to happen when you jump in late to a show. But hey, hopefully you'll catch up and be able to participate in the current squee.

I have not seen Shameless yet, but a few friends have recommended it. I may try it out. I know Emmy Rossum and William H. Macy are on it, and I like them both.

Chuck's pretty cool. I've only been exposed to him via Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs, but he and Michael Chiarello are so bromantic. And he has the most ridiculously adorkable facial expressions.

From:

scandalbaby.livejournal.com

I got in at the very beginning, but first Elle and then Gideon just turned me off so I stopped watching halfway through season one. I was waiting for an episode of CSI: NY to come on a few years back and saw the S3 finale while I was waiting and I was transfixed. I mean, this group of people seemed very different from the one I started with, and it wasn't just the obvious of Gideon & Elle being gone and Rossi & Prentiss being there instead. This group just clicked for me.

I'm a huge Prentiss fan. I almost want to have a bracelet saying "WWPD?" to look at because I love her character so much. She's the one who gets me to come back every week. In fact, it wasn't until last season was over that I watched it because she had left and then suddenly I heard she was back. I was like "Okay, good! Yay!"

But you know what? Even the episodes where she was gone were good. That shows with this team, that the loss of JJ and Prentiss by the end of the season still left a good show. It's the chemistry of all of them, in whatever duo, trio or more is around, that shines through. I still say this has one of the best ensemble casts around.

ETA: You know the best part? Now I can watch Gideon and Elle episodes and appreciate them as being good, too, so I can enjoy the entire series again. I'm grateful for that because there's been so much good acting on this show.

Edited Date: Nov. 15th, 2011 12:34 am (UTC)

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I would really really like to know who made the casting decisions, because wow, it's good down to to the minor characters.

Like in "Profiler, Profile" for example, Detective Dickish's face when he was finally arresting Buford, he looked sooo guilty for the part he play in Morgan's fear.

Some storylines are just, wtf wtf, like the Frankenstein one, but they pull through due to excellent acting.

I think I remember a post that commends's Elle's actress on her mad skillz: on the near-death-plane, the guy playing Elle's father was smoking hot, but Elle's actress managed to pull off the performance without any inappropriate chemistry, kudos!

I really love Rossi's ex-wife too, those two have so much chemistry, we only know her for like, two episodes? ...but they manage to convince us that they have history so what happened in the end was heartbreaking instead of wangst (like, for example, in the comic Hellblazer: John Constantine, the later series have a bad habit of introducing new characters that are apparently long lost friends just to fridge them, often carried in a way where the audience feels meh, this was not one of those cases).

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

I hear you on not-liking Elle and Gideon, initially. Goodness knows I have ranted about my dislike of them, but you're right, you can definitely appreciate their acting (because I love Mandy Patinkin in virtually anything else).

From:

silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com

What I love is their humanity and goodness in the face of the evil and inhumanity they encounter. Such horrible things happen in the show, I couldn't watch it if it weren't that the team embodies the best of human nature.

From:

never-at-home.livejournal.com

I think this is why I love Criminal Minds as well. I always like it that good ultimately overcomes evil; that they do everything they can to stop evil, even when it appears that evil has won for a while; and that even though they've been hurt by their struggles, they still press on.

From:

angleico315678.livejournal.com

One great thing I love about this show, is the fact that everyone in the team mesh well together. There are so many cop procedural shows out there that focus a lot on inner-team relationships and that tend to exaggerate the relationships. I love how even though all the team members are close, TPTB don't push for an actual romance or extreme conflict.

I used to love this show for the profiling and the verisimilitude of the show (the fact that they're actually getting into the minds of the criminals to catch them, not the CSI mumbo jumbo). But then I started to fall in love with the characters and the story lines the writers would create for them. I absolutely adored Elephant's Memory, Penelope, Profiler Profiled, and most recently, Rossi's background story. Not only were they fitting of the character, the actors themselves added the humanity into the episodes. Shemar Moore's performance in Profiler Profiled had me in tears, as did the hundredth episode and Thomas Gibson's performance.

The other great thing is the amazing dynamics that the team has. They are always there to support one another. And I have to agree that there is no relationship between the characters that are the same. Morgan and Garica's relationship has a 180 difference from Rossi and Hotch's relationship. That's what is so amazing about the show, is that despite the different personalities, everyone still has a tight bond to every other person.

In the beginning, it was the distinct originality that attracted me to the show, but now I have fallen in love with each of the characters. And despite the departure of AJ Cook, they managed to get her back because of their unwillingness to disrupt the dynamic of the team. It goes to show how different our show has to every other cop procedural and what makes it so amazing.

From:

nwjarvis.livejournal.com

One of the (many) things I love about CM is the way they disguise the show as a police procedural. They're really not; in fact, on the Season 2 DVD, there's a section titled "The P Word" where (then) Co-Executive Producer Chris Mundy says "We don't think of it as procedural at all. In fact, we get annoyed when people do."

What the show is, I think, is an ongoing examination of questions like nature vs nurture, the existence of good and evil in the world, the effects of trauma on people - why and how some people break and how others manage to survive and soldier on.

I also love the (usually) subtle little meta moments the show gives us.

Example: Jason Gideon was an inveterate bird -lover and -watcher. After Mandy Patinkin took a runner (surprise!), the very first look we get at Dave Rossi, what's he doing? Blowing a bird out of the air with a shotgun.

BOOM! Bye, Jason.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

As a bird lover (Team Nite Owls!), this is my frowny face: >:(

He started writing his goodbye letter on his journal....that kinda looked like he was thinking about killing himself and leaving his journal there.

I really miss Gideon, but if fits perfectly for him to leave there.

There is really a lot of parallel to what Frank put Gideon thorugh and what Foyet did to Hotch, but Hotch got it out by getting to beat Foyet to death and Hotch got little Jack to live for. Gideon watch Frank get away with it by going out the way Frank wants to.

Dude, a sexual sadist killed Gideon's old schoolmate in his bed, getting blood all over his home, even if Mandy wasn't leaving for good, that kinda thing look like the cause for a forced medical leave II.

Police Procedurals will always have a place in the nostalgia section of my heart, but I agree that CM isn't it, I think of it as an exploration of the human question - what makes us, us. ...and I'll like it if the show makes this the drawing point again, and not make with the graphic serial killer wet dream fodder please? The worst that sticks in my mind was "Remembrance of Things Past", it was executed like the show as targetting the aging serial sex killer demographic, urgh.

The focus was on the serial sex killer reliving his fantasy, which we got in clear visual, near nude women tied down and afraid filling the screen, I think that could have either been replaced with her point of view, or the camera could focus on a small reflection of it.

...and it was really a missed opportunity, where the subject is Rossi's old case. Srsly, fuck the creeper's fantasy, and his memory problem, which considering the context, I fail to feel any droplet of sympathy for. I would have liked details like Rossi figuring old how old the victims who were killed during the first round would have been now, victim impact. Plus, while the original killer's memory problem was the key to why the murders are occurring, the more interesting psychology for me, was that of the son.

Like, back "Open Seasons", the brothers were raised by the original serial killer, that's why, "they don't think like us", I wanted more on how the son was isolated and reared to be the serial killer's helper and again, NOT graphic scenarios of the serial killer's fantasy.

From:

full-metal-ox.livejournal.com

...but Hotch got it out by getting to beat Foyet to death and Hotch got little Jack to live for.

This is also the episode wherein any boundaries between Team and Family--tenuous at best on this show(1)--have collapsed utterly; even Jack's game of Working the Case With Daddy becomes grimly literal--and, by so doing, he saves not only his own life but quite probably his father's sanity. (And remember, everyone--that's why you want a family emergency codephrase!)

(1) Note that Haley receives a full-dress hero's funeral with FBI pallbearers.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

...and Strass being cool with Hotch killing Foyet.

Why couldn't she have shown that softer side earlier though, like after Gideon's GF was killed in his bed! Instead of playing stupid politics and threatening Hotch in Doubt, I wouldn't even have got to Doubt, right after No Way Out II I would have medical leaved Gideon no matter what he says.

I miss Elle and Gideon, the show is missing something visceral without them (It's personal for Elle the way it isn't for Emily, and Gideon was the one who used to personalize the victims, even the ones we were introduced to as photographs, we see them imagined as moving smiling people through his mind montage), but functionally speaking, Emily and Rossi fulfilled essential roles that was missing earlier, that was the reason the team wasn't doing well: Emily handled politics, and Rossi nurtured the team as his MAIN thing.

From:

nwjarvis.livejournal.com

To answer your topic sentence: Certainly. One was here, now the other is. They are distinctly different characters, and there's no reason you cant like/appreciate both of them.

You shoulda been around for the Rossi bashing when he came to the show. Or Prentiss before him. Or Seaver, more recently. I think it's a standard reaction to a new character.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I read the old entries, especially fanfic, so yeah.

Srsly, Ron the Death Eater is lame. I read the one where Rossi tried to rape Reid and I was like, this guy didn't seem like it...but that was one fic, whereas there seem to be multiple fics featuring Gideon doing something like that while he would NEVAR.

A Gideon who is capable of sexually abusing Reid wouldn't be Gideon at all, in any universe. This is a guy who deliberately voted down roses after someone said it would get him laid, choosing something happy instead, but of all the people on the show with, he's attracted to Sarah, romantically in a romantic fashion. That young lady who was getting weird on him in "Somebody's Watching?", zero reaction. When Reid was all happy about the possibility of them going to the Red Skins game? He pushed her towards JJ. Is this the behaviour of a predator who seek to isolate prey? Then there is Reid's reaction towards Gideon, Reid have such a huge crush, platonic or not, he doesn't want to get away.

If Gideon were to go evil side (or in the opinion of some fans...eviler), I feel that he would probably be more like, V from V for Vendetta, graphic novel like. In the graphic novel, Evey was a completely different character than the one in the movie, and so was her relationship with V - something that probably majorly pissed off Alan Moore. The movie made it a romance, which would understandably piss off Alan Moore considering what was in the novel, which was this:
Evey was a vulnerable 16 yr girl so improvished in spite of her state assigned factory job, that she was going to walk the street to supplement it, but the first night, she was accosted by the fingerman who was about to do her violence when V rescued her and took her in, sheltered her and mentored her about the government and the world before. She started having really Freudian dreams that first 'reveals' V as her long lost father, and then one in which his father express his love for her...and indicates that he will 'promote' her to mother (and she's happy about this, because she was so vulnerable she was willing to trade sex for paternal protection). It was at this point, that Evey started making sexualized overtures to her mentor V, who responded by
a) Signing Evey up for therapy
b) Taking sexual advantage of Evey
c) Making a speech about how he has raised her to independence, she doesn't need him to protect her anymore, and then dumping her onto the streets

It was c) by the way, all c), because V was a mission driven sort of crazy, not the sexual fantasy driven kind.

...and if Gideon goes crazy, that would be him. He really hurt Reid by leaving like that, but like V, he was a special kind of headcase, he couldn't be the kinda mentor / whatever that Reid needed or wanted because he himself was cracked. Still, that veteran in "Distress"' couldn't hurt kids, and even if Gideon go full loony tunes he still wouldn't hurt Reid. The only Gideon/Reid I believe in would have to come from Reid's side.

From:

nwjarvis.livejournal.com

Personally, I think what was broadcast was the AU version; in the "real world" Gideon left his brains on the cabin wall.

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

I don't believe that Gideon would kill himself...inside his cabin, as he had wrote, he knew that Reid would be the one who would come up to the cabin looking for him. Someone wrote a fic with that as the reason why Gideon didn't do it, in the cabin, Gideon's Gift:
http://ssa-gideon.livejournal.com/14947.html
"and the first thing he will notice is the smell. Eyes will sweep the room, imprinting in that curse of a memory the crimson pooling on the floor"

...I could sadly, however, believe in Gideon killing himself AFTER he has left the happy endings letter, I could even believe that he planned it, to fool everyone into believing he just left when the end game was suicide somewhere else.

...but he could also be sincerely moving out there, looking to recover, and he could either heal his fisher king wound - or he doesn't.

It's just, several years ago, I was at a very bad place, and I remember what a mess it was. Still, while a majority of it was depression, I still had happy moments - manically happy moments. Knowing this now, I wouldn't see sudden happiness as "Oh we can stop worrying now" if someone really depress is suddenly happy (Oh god, I had this epal who posted everyday, he was normal, and then one day, it was about "I'm sorry I worried you guys, I'm okay now", he was hospitalized for a suicide attempt"). There has to be a cause. Maybe it's a good solid thing, like the stressor is gone - or they just decided that they figured out the solution - suicide - and a weight is lifted because they think, the pain is going to end now. OR, associated with the manic high, they are have unrealistic high hopes, fantastical ones, and when that one is poked through, we have depression again.

Considering Jason's choice of cooping method is compartmenization, I think he'll he especially prone to experiencing manic high substained by Unrealistic Expectations, he was smiling at the guess station, he'll think, he'll left that part behind, the ugly violent part, his job at the BAU, and outside, it's all sunshine, but bad things happen everything, and I think maybe Jason has the bad luck of running into them, remember how he found the Footpath Killer? He was just getting gas...

From:

gsyh.livejournal.com

Bad things happen everywhere. That comment was full of typo, yikes.

From:

ficdirectory.livejournal.com

What do you love most about Criminal Minds?
What first drew me to watch CM was actually its similarity to Law & Order: SVU. To clarify, the first episode I saw was P911. I actually found I liked CM better because I was instantly a fan of the entire cast and invested in what they were doing. It was easy to follow, yet informative, and all the characters were intriguing.

I'm not really a fan of the action, just for action's sake, but I do like when a character is strong and fierce. I'm generally not a fan of the creepy unsubs, though I do find it impressive that the writers have had several who have been sympathetic, to some degree. I do love the team, but I think above anything else, I love the cast of actors portraying the team. I love how deep and talented each of them is. I've been a fan of AJ Cook for more than 10 years (since Higher Ground.) Joe Mantegna for more than 7 (since Joan of Arcadia.) I know what they can do dramatically, and I'm just waiting for AJ in particular to get the chance to show what she is truly capable of. The thing about CM is, that even the actors I wasn't familiar with, I became a fan of relatively quickly - especially Matthew Gray Gubler and Kirsten Vangsness. (Shemar Moore, Paget Brewster and Thomas Gibson I came to like after their character episodes: Profiler Profiled, Demonology, and 100. It really showed their abilities off as actors.)

This is a great first RTM!

From:

bluerosefairy.livejournal.com

I'll be back with a longer comment when I'm not slacking off at work, but I just have to second the Joan of Arcadia love! Joe was awesome on that show.