Joe Mantegna suddenly catblock / why I like Rossi

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

There is something about Rossi that is always sweet and hilarious. Gavin de Becker said that men are worried that women would laugh at them, while women are worried that men would kill them (for laughing/rejecting them). Well Rossi had always struck me as the kind of men who wouldn't be afraid or angry at a woman who laughs at him, even if it was in bed. Is this weird? The fact that he stayed friends with his first wife have me reading Rossi less as a man who have failed three marriages, and more as a man who have moved pass three failed marriages (or mistaken match-ups) - his id is not dependent on any conduct of 'his woman'.


http://criminalminds.dreamwidth.org/16741.html

Comments

[chreesko.livejournal.com]

The Hotch-Rossi dynamic works so much better, because it doesn't seem like Hotch is constantly propping him up. More equal.

I just rewatched Riding the Lightning, so this really stuck out for me. Hotch is so much more authoritative now than he was then. And I noticed that in some of the scenes where Rossi advises Hotch or acts as a confidant, there is often a lot of physical space between them, like in the hospital scene after Hotch was stabbed, or the counseling scene in Hotch's office after everyone thought Prentiss had died (though some of that space was probably supposed to symbolize how isolated Hotch was from everyone), or in Hotch's office when Rossi was trying to get him to go out with Beth, or in that one deleted scene from S4 where Rossi asks Hotch about how he's doing after Kate's death.

The only time I recall Rossi and Hotch getting touchy with each other during scenes where Rossi is imparting wisdom was the alley scene in Omnivore, and even then, there was a fair amount of space between them. It seems like, by allowing that space, by standing back and giving advice and then letting Hotch work through it himself, he's being the advisor and letting Hotch be the leader.

Gideon, on the other hand, was usually all up in Hotch's space, both physically and mentally. In that sense, I think he was more intimate with Hotch than Rossi is. But while he knew him well, he never really knew how to advise him. Gideon would use himself and his own reactions as a template for what Hotch should or shouldn't do, which was a bad idea because Gideon was pretty screwed up. It goes back to his lack of self-awareness, I guess. Rossi recognizes that his dysfunction shouldn't be an example for others to follow. He may not know exactly what Hotch is thinking at any given moment the way Gideon sometimes seemed to, but he's better at recognizing what Hotch needs and how to give it to him.