Other things may change us, but we start and end with family...

[a_blackpanther]

This is the discussion post for Episode 7x16 - "A Family Affair". Watch out for SPOILERS in the comments.

Comments

[diemme.livejournal.com]

I hope this one is creepy!

[pretty-rainbow8.livejournal.com]

I'm really excited for this episode!! :DD

[diemme.livejournal.com]

Are Reid and Morgan out having lunch or shagging or what?

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

I trust in their ability to multi-task.

[jupisan.livejournal.com]

thank god he tame his hair.

Also Cory Matthews Dad.!!! Hi.

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

I missed my bus and just came home, what did I miss?

[lady-ami.livejournal.com]

Most awkward dinner ever.....

[diemme.livejournal.com]

Awkward dinner party is awkward.

[diemme.livejournal.com]

I want one of the team to shoot that bitch in the face.

[lady-ami.livejournal.com]

Oh no Cory's dad

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

Rossi: So, what time should I pick up Jack tomorrow?


They're married! Beth who?

...and Reid is babysitting for JJ! Uh oh, "What could possibly go wrong?"

Srsly, it's okay if Hotch is dating Beth, but does she have to show up so often? Will disappeared until a few episodes before JJ had to have the baby.


I really much rather see more of Will, and Henry. Especially Will's probable abandonment issues, JJ almost die on the job a few episode ago, that gotta bring back Will's bad memory of his daddy dying during the storm. I'm so ignored that in the episode where JJ got hurt, we got more Beth from nowhere instead of Will giving JJ some TLC, is the actor busy?

[ansera.livejournal.com]

"Srsly, it's okay if Hotch is dating Beth, but does she have to show up so often? Will disappeared until a few episodes before JJ had to have the baby."
THIS. No offence, but I can't stand Beth as it is. But I love Will. Sooo, I clearly would rather have more appearances of the team!family sort of scenes or snippets of Will/Henry instead.

[tryxkittie.livejournal.com]

ded from cute

[tryxkittie.livejournal.com]

also, why does every ep have to end in the BAU-ers pointing their guns at an unsub who's pointing a gun at a hostage?

[philstar22.livejournal.com]

Because otherwise we wouldn't get awesome scenes of one or more BAU members talking the suspect into lowering their guns? That would be my guess.

[diemme.livejournal.com]

Now that Hotch is settled can Reid possibly get a date?

[dhae_knight_1]

... only if it's with a guy. Preferably Sean Hotchner, because I want to see him again... ;-)

[piperwest12.livejournal.com]

Omg Cade has gotten so tall and he is missing a tooth! Any of you fanfic writers out there? Please write a fic about Reid babysitting and the girls night out!!!

[mzkitteh.livejournal.com]

I've never written a fanfic before but I already see so many possible scenarios. Might have to give it a try!

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

Only 8 episodes left!

...and then no more Paget. :(

I really hope that CBS release her from contract, don't kill off Emily, and give Paget the option to come back for a cameo if she wants to.

[sam-maddy.livejournal.com]

I really liked this episode. The ending was awesome. Jack was too adorable w/his sign.

[dhae_knight_1]

I was terribly fond of the hung-over girls. "Can you make everyone stop cheering?" And Reid? Cheers on madly... XD

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Not one Southern accent in that episode, let alone a Georgia accent. I have family in the Atlanta area -- that is just not realistic.

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

"Don't you want him to be happy"

I'm now catching the first half of this episode on CTV's site, and god, I want to smash this lady's face in with a hammer.
,
This is why in addition to to not getting into a car with a strange woman because of Karla Homolka, old ladies aren't safe as well. IRL, in the 'chicken wire cage' terrible case where little boys were kept for a time before they were killed, it was the irl unsub's mother who said he had to kill the first boy he killed, because otherwise he'll be recognized, monsterous bitch. Last week, I was helping this very feeble lady to her car with her purchases, and I kept watching out for tazers or knives or her psychotic son waiting in the car.

"I know I could never love another child as much as I love Jeffrey"

Especially if the other child was only a girl. I recognize this woman, she's extremely extremely sexist, and because she's a woman, this really screws her up, sympathy for her background aside, this is the kinda woman who would raise serial killers and rapists, and if she had a daughter, that daughter would be a fucking wreck because the mother would project the lack of her own self-worth onto the daughter - that her life should be centered around men.

The woman in question center her life around men, and as much as they appreciate it as first, she would quickly suffocate them. She takes pride in being a housewife, in keeping a clean house, in serving her men, but housewife isn't her occupation, it's her whole identity - no friends no hobbies.

When her son is outed as a serial killer/rapist, she would rally around him, and in some cases, her daughter / his sister would as well. In the Ronnie Shelton case, the sister actually started stalking his victims!


....and I know this woman, she lets her husband do what ever he wants, beat the kids, though she'll try to intervene if it's the boy being abused. Obviously, the poor boy developed problems, got into fights at school, which is how I knew of him. What's not on record (that I know of) is that he used to threaten his sister with knives, just brandishes it - because it gives him a sense of power. The amazing thing is, with such shitty parents, but the fortune of our excellent education system, the boy turned out mostly alright - deriving his sense of power from his academic achievement.

...but mothers like that? It makes me rage. Sometimes you can call protective services when you see bruises, but most times, the abuse is more subtle, financial favourism, letting the boy get away with murder while setting curfew for the girl that's realllly restrictive, and if there are bruises, it's what the mother allow the boy to do to the girl. If you know a girl like this, the best you could do is to help keep her from being isolated off by her crazy mother, push her back in if you notice her quitting clubs, depression hotline. The worst habit she can inherit is to cut herself off to hide the ugly and pretend things are fine.


ETA: and dear god, I know it's sexist: but I've always been more uncomfortable with violence against women by men (versus cartoon violence towards men by men or towards men by women), especially when my favourite male characters do it. I always had the soft spot towards the 'never hit a girl' benign sexist types like Steve Rogers. Still, I have to say I fucking cheered when Rossi shot this monster in the chest, it'll be karma if she drowns in her blood like the girls she delivered into the maze of the minotaur. I think she is a murderer too, what she did the sex therapist.

[nwjarvis.livejournal.com]

I think a case can be made for the mother being a call-back of sorts to the father in "Charm and Harm".

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

- Rossi has a face like a pug, it's kinda adorable
- FBI triathlon? Is this for real and do they have sweaty hunky calendars?
- people who were on Shemar Moore's manly's shoulders: Mandy Patinkin, Matthew Gubler, and little Jack Hotchner!
- Such a perfect team moment, and then Beth walks in! ARGH.

I feel insulted everytime Beth walks in, it feels like that execs wrote her in as What Women Wants. No. Or it's divorced dad's dream girl - she didn't seem very realistic - she doesn't exist outside of being Hotch's GF. I'm not saying I want to learn all about her, but a character ought to have a FEELING of existing outside of being a character's sig-other, even if that is their function - Haley for example, felt very real, she had her sister, she was concerned about Jack, she was frustrated with Hotch not being home all the time, she wasn't the perfect wife, she was real. Will's intro was excellent because it was a part of a story, he had a father who was killed on the job even though Will begged him to leave before the hurricane, he had a bestfriend who never told him about the gay side of his life even though he could have been fine with it, etc.

I think I would have liked it better if Beth was a veteran nurse and/or an older woman with a kid Jack's age, AND if her first appearance is the last we've seen of her for a while, like with Will - there is something for leaving stuff off screen, up to viewer's imagination and fanfic.

As is, oh god, if only it's possible, I don't want to see Beth on screen for the rest of the season, just have some reference to her still dating Hotch now and then.

...and I don't think Jack likes Beth lol.

[dhae_knight_1]

I don't think Jack's too fond of Beth, either. And I agree. I think that's part of the reason why I can so easily see her as an unsub-to-be. She's such a cipher! :-(

Rossi, however, can spend every day pushing Hotch into a relationship. He's cute when he does that! :-D

[dhae_knight_1]

First of all. Show, please stop giving so much screen-time to the unsub's fucked-up family. If I wanted to see a serial-killer at work, I would watch Dexter. Also, it makes it seem like the team is pretty much just flailing around until they stumble on the right combination of traits which is a) insulting to professional profilers, b) boring and pointless and c) not why I began watching CM.

Secondly; Hotch, I love you a lot, but if you want your girlfriend to meet your son, maybe you should be a little proactive in that direction. I know they're trying to portray you as adorably awkward, but they're going to end up making you seem like you're incapable of making adult, considered decisions on behalf of yourself and your son. Please break up with whatever writers thinks it's okay to push you in that direction.

Thirdly; Spencer, seriously, keep changing the way you have. The words; "What could possibly go wrong," ought to make any mother twitch (also - who the heck had Henry on race day?).

Lastly; RACE DAY! Weirdly, totally saved by the hung-over girls. Almost utterly borked by the appearance of Beth. Girl, you call your boyfriend for Hotchner? Oh, yeah. I feel the intimacy just sneaking up on me. Also... Am I weird for kinda wanting that scene to have been long enough to have seen her introduced to the team?

In summary; I didn't really plan to finish the fic where I break Hotch (and Beth ends up dead), but almost 2000 words later, I did. I don't like Beth, but apparently, that dislike? Is inspirational! XD

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

I normally dislike unsub focus, but I like it this time because it show us his mind, and um, I totally count his family as unsubs as well, they definitely murdered the sex therapist girl. I actually think that the most brutal blows were done by the mother, when she came in to finish the sex therapist off - and that the one placing the dead girls in the nurturing positions were the father, since he was the one who dispose of them after all! Plus, the father had wanted a daughter, while the mother was very misogynist, viewing the girls as things for her son to use up. The sex therapist was wrapped neatly in plastic by the mother.

Race day was a perfect team moment, and then Beth showed up.

Profile timez!

Beth Clemmons is an organized serial killer with serious daddy issues - the trigger was either the death of her cancer-stricken father months prior to meeting Hotch, or the news of the cancer itself. Beth believes she's avenging her long neglected mother or even her childhood self when she chooses to punish widowed men with young children who she views as being neglectful of his family. Hotch is deemed guilty for replacing Haley with Jessica as the mother and Beth as his new woman.

[tragicllyhip.livejournal.com]

Why don't people like Beth? just curious...she seems nice enough

[liliaeth]

Yeah, I don't get it either. For some reason people seem more willing to accept the male love interests than the female ones.

[lady-ami.livejournal.com]

Did anyone else question where Henry went? I mean Will was out of town and so was JJ so I'm going to assume a nanny had him during the time of the case, but she wanted her weekend off hence why Reid stepped into babysit but than we get to the race and I'm going to assume that Will is still out of town and the nanny is still off and Reid is at the race and so is JJ and everybody else so where is the three year old. BAU Home Alone....

[dhae_knight_1]

That was my thought too! Henry should totally have been there with them! :-D

[runriggers.livejournal.com]

Okay, correct me if I'm wrong - the girls night out was on Saturday night - but wasn't the triathalon on Saturday? So how could the girls be going out that night (the night they are still on the plane) and Hotch run the triathalon? I'm sure I heard Beth say that the triathalon was on Saturday.

[gsyh.livejournal.com]

"a wizard did it"