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criminalxminds2012-01-30 05:44 pm
rainbow-goddess.livejournal.com) wrote in criminalxminds2012-01-30 05:44 pm
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Round Table Mondays: Spencer Reid
When I volunteered for this week's Round Table Monday, I already knew that I had to write about my favourite character: Spencer Reid, boy genius.
Spencer was born in Las Vegas and his birthdate has been calculated as being October 9, 1981. He grew up with a mentally ill mother, Diana, and his father abandoned the family when Spencer was young, unable to deal with Diana's illness. Spencer has his mother committed when he was 18, and she remains in a psychiatric hospital.
Spencer was bullied quite severely as a child due to his being different from the other kids in terms of his intelligence and his social awkwardness. His social standing increased when he started coaching basketball, using his knowledge of statistics to figure out the other team's strategies and using that knowledge to help his team win games.
Spencer joined the FBI at age 21 and was recruited by Gideon to join Hotch's team in the BAU. In earlier episodes it was evident that Gideon was his mentor. Gideon once prompted Spencer to ask JJ for a date. When Spencer developed an addiction to Dialudid as a result of his abduction by Tobias Henkel, Gideon was the one he finally admitted it to.
Spencer has been through a lot in his time at the BAU. In addition to being tortured and drugged by Henkel, he and Prentiss were held hostage by a cult leader, he was shot in the leg protecting a doctor who had been threatened, and he was infected with anthrax. For a while he was having terrible headaches, possibly psychosomatic, which (as far as we know) have still not been resolved, at least not on-screen.
He enjoys a warm relationship with his teammates; they seem to see him as a sort of little brother type. He appears to be closest to JJ and Morgan. He's the godfather of JJ's son. He was deeply affected by Emily's apparent death, and spent "ten weeks crying" at JJ's house. He also felt guilty at not detecting Elle Greenaway's problems, having spoken to her the night before she shot an alleged rapist and having seen that she was drinking.
His teammates are not above teasing him about his age or his brilliance. Rossi says that they found him as a baby in a basket on the steps of the BAU. He was teased a lot when he failed his gun qualification. Despite their obvious affection for him, JJ is the only one to call him Spencer or "Spence," while everyone else, even Hotch (who commonly uses people's first names) calls him Reid.
Recently Spencer has been feeling like he should have accomplished more with his life now that he is 30 years old, in spite of the fact that he has three (or possibly four) PhDs (one of the writers apparently mentioned that he recently earned a fourth PhD from Yale, but that hasn't been confirmed on-screen).
As far as we know, Reid doesn't have an ongoing love interest (not counting the potential slash relationships with his teammates) though he has had some friendly overtures from a couple of women -- an actress, and a woman he met in a bar and performed magic tricks for.
Spencer may have an autism spectrum disorder. It has been speculated by many people that he has Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism. In "Broken Mirror" an UNSUB referred to Reid's autistic tendencies, but it has never been mentioned in the show otherwise. Matthew Gray Gubler has said that Reid has Asperger's, and that you can't have three PhDs at age 25 without having some autistic tendencies. He definitely has some of the social skills problems seen in people with Asperger's, as well as the literal-mindedness. Some of this, however, may be due to his living situation when he was growing up; people with schizophrenia have the same kinds of social skills problems as people with autism spectrum disorders, so it's possible that he simply never learned proper social skills from his mother because she had problems with them also.
What is your favourite Spencer Reid moment?
Is there a part of his past that you wish got some focus?
Please share any additional thoughts about Reid in this post.
Spencer was born in Las Vegas and his birthdate has been calculated as being October 9, 1981. He grew up with a mentally ill mother, Diana, and his father abandoned the family when Spencer was young, unable to deal with Diana's illness. Spencer has his mother committed when he was 18, and she remains in a psychiatric hospital.
Spencer was bullied quite severely as a child due to his being different from the other kids in terms of his intelligence and his social awkwardness. His social standing increased when he started coaching basketball, using his knowledge of statistics to figure out the other team's strategies and using that knowledge to help his team win games.
Spencer joined the FBI at age 21 and was recruited by Gideon to join Hotch's team in the BAU. In earlier episodes it was evident that Gideon was his mentor. Gideon once prompted Spencer to ask JJ for a date. When Spencer developed an addiction to Dialudid as a result of his abduction by Tobias Henkel, Gideon was the one he finally admitted it to.
Spencer has been through a lot in his time at the BAU. In addition to being tortured and drugged by Henkel, he and Prentiss were held hostage by a cult leader, he was shot in the leg protecting a doctor who had been threatened, and he was infected with anthrax. For a while he was having terrible headaches, possibly psychosomatic, which (as far as we know) have still not been resolved, at least not on-screen.
He enjoys a warm relationship with his teammates; they seem to see him as a sort of little brother type. He appears to be closest to JJ and Morgan. He's the godfather of JJ's son. He was deeply affected by Emily's apparent death, and spent "ten weeks crying" at JJ's house. He also felt guilty at not detecting Elle Greenaway's problems, having spoken to her the night before she shot an alleged rapist and having seen that she was drinking.
His teammates are not above teasing him about his age or his brilliance. Rossi says that they found him as a baby in a basket on the steps of the BAU. He was teased a lot when he failed his gun qualification. Despite their obvious affection for him, JJ is the only one to call him Spencer or "Spence," while everyone else, even Hotch (who commonly uses people's first names) calls him Reid.
Recently Spencer has been feeling like he should have accomplished more with his life now that he is 30 years old, in spite of the fact that he has three (or possibly four) PhDs (one of the writers apparently mentioned that he recently earned a fourth PhD from Yale, but that hasn't been confirmed on-screen).
As far as we know, Reid doesn't have an ongoing love interest (not counting the potential slash relationships with his teammates) though he has had some friendly overtures from a couple of women -- an actress, and a woman he met in a bar and performed magic tricks for.
Spencer may have an autism spectrum disorder. It has been speculated by many people that he has Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism. In "Broken Mirror" an UNSUB referred to Reid's autistic tendencies, but it has never been mentioned in the show otherwise. Matthew Gray Gubler has said that Reid has Asperger's, and that you can't have three PhDs at age 25 without having some autistic tendencies. He definitely has some of the social skills problems seen in people with Asperger's, as well as the literal-mindedness. Some of this, however, may be due to his living situation when he was growing up; people with schizophrenia have the same kinds of social skills problems as people with autism spectrum disorders, so it's possible that he simply never learned proper social skills from his mother because she had problems with them also.
What is your favourite Spencer Reid moment?
Is there a part of his past that you wish got some focus?
Please share any additional thoughts about Reid in this post.